


see what develops

by deuteroscopies



Series: the prophet and the king [25]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Anal Sex, Dirty Talk, Established Relationship, Food, M/M, Nude Beach, Vacation, Water Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:07:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21983401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deuteroscopies/pseuds/deuteroscopies
Summary: The boys go to Greece.
Relationships: Freddie Watts/Ephram Pettaline
Series: the prophet and the king [25]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1551673
Kudos: 1





	see what develops

**Author's Note:**

> >   
> Freddie Watts = Tom Hardy FC, Ephram Pettaline = Boyd Holbrook FC. These stories are set in the supernatural town of Soapberry Springs, in the Pacific Northwest. Freddie is a fairy con man from London, with cobalt-coloured dragonfly wings and silver fairy dust, who has a Japanese Chin familiar named Oliver; Ephram is a witch from impoverished East Kentucky who shares his body with a demon called Anaxis and has green magic of his own.
>> 
>> [the prophet and the king 'verse tumblr](http://theprophetandtheking.tumblr.com/)  
> 

EPHRAM TXT: Honey so I got a phone call from some artist lady in Grieselle  
TXT: She said she wants to do an art show? Of folks in town dressed up?  
TXT: Anyhow she said maybe she wants to start with me.  
TXT: What you think?  
  
[FREDDIE TXT] You mean she wants you to model for her, sweetheart? If she does, then obviously she’s got a very good eye. <3  
[TXT] Is she a painter? Photographer? What’s her name, darling?  
[TXT] And what does she want you wearing?  
  
EPHRAM TXT: Yeah I guess so if posing for a picture counts as modelling. Maybe she thinks I’d be the most dramatic change cleaned up hah hah  
TXT: Photography. She seemed a little miffed I didn’t recall her name I’ll find her card  
TXT: Fei Fei Poppleworth. You know her?  
TXT: A suit I reckon. I didn’t really ask since I wanted to float it past you first. I mean when it comes to dressing me you get first dibs and all.

[FREDDIE TXT] Of course it does. And stop that. You’re bloody gorgeous, and I know it even if you don’t. :P  
[TXT] So you’ve met her before?  
[TXT] No, love; doesn’t ring any bells. Does she have a website listed on her card? I’d like to have a look at her work.  
[TXT] Well, if it’s up to me… I think I should buy you something new. ;D Did she happen to say if she’d mind a bit of an audience while she works? I’d rather like to watch, if I could.  
  
EPHRAM TXT: See this is why I keep you around, because I like how you talk and because you tell me I’m pretty XD  
TXT: Oh no not recall like that, more like she expected me to recognize her name? I guess she got some kind of a following or something.  
TXT: yeah it says her website is feifei.sb  
TXT: So with a Soapberry website she must only do work in town huh?  
TXT: I should tell her I come with a personal dresser. And fluffer.  
  
[FREDDIE TXT] So those are the only reasons, are they? Whatever will become of me when my mouth is full. ;P  
[TXT] Oh. Well, I suppose we’d better look her up then, hadn’t we?  
[TXT] Did she happen to mention where she normally shows her work? I mean, I’m in and out of the local galleries all the time, darling, so I’ve likely already seen it somewhere.  
[TXT] That’s exactly what you should tell her. xD Maybe we’ll be able to commission a few things for our own collection, hm?  
  
EPHRAM TXT: When your mouth is full it counts as you telling me I’m pretty of course  
TXT: Uh she said she shows atttttttt something like The Mooby Us Trip? I couldn’t really tell what she was saying and I didn’t wanna ask.  
TXT: Our collection IS pretty fuckin artistic. I wouldn’t mind adding more to it.  
TXT: Hey if you figure out where that gallerie is at or actually what the NAME of it is we should go take a look! Do our recon so we know she ain’t gonna put me in something gonna make me look foolish.  
  
[FREDDIE TXT] Well, in that case, I think I’m safe. lol  
[TXT] Oh! The Möbius Strip, love. It’s in Grieselle too, so I should have realized. It’s not a bad little gallery, really. I bought that little sculpture in the front foyer there, as a matter of fact.  
[TXT] Nor would I.  
[TXT] Sweetheart, I promise you, I would never allow her to make you look foolish. <3 But if you’d like to go have a look in person, rather than online, I think that would be wonderful. When have you got the time, darling? My schedule’s as open as ever. lol  
  
EPHRAM TXT: You’re more than safe, kitten, don’t you fret yourself bout it none.  
TXT: I still don’t know what that is lol but if you been there before then that’s a relief! I like that sculpture too. It reminds me of that big fuzzy tooth thing what used to be in Bugs Bunny cartoons  
TXT: Okay good. Because that’s my worst worry when it comes to stuff like this is looking like a dumb hick.  
TXT: Oh don’t make it sound like you’re so innocent doing nothing, I know as a fact there’s a Japanese restaurant what says you ruined its reputation in the course of one afternoon.  
TXT: I’ll come get you after lunch <3  
  
[FREDDIE TXT] I’m not really worried, love. I just like to hear you tell me things like that.  
[TXT] I’ll show you what one is later, if you like. It’s a sort of a loop with only one side and one edge. And I’m glad you like that sculpture, darling - I rather like it myself. Though I have to admit I never thought of it as being that orange hairy monster before. I’ll need to give it another look. lol  
[TXT] I know - but you’re not one, sweetheart; and art is very subjective. Once we have a look round though, you’ll feel better. A bit of familiarity goes a long way. :)  
[TXT] Me? Perish the thought. ;) Who repeated such a nasty rumour?  
[TXT] I’ll be waiting. <3  
  
EPHRAM TXT: Yeah you’ll have to show me bcuz I can’t visualize it from that explanation!!  
TXT: Okay. And you’re right I’ll probly feel more like I know what’s going on after seeing her work.  
TXT: They took an item off the menu because of you. I know because they donated it to my nokken feeding program which I’ll tell you about. You’re lucky you being naughty turned out to be a help to me or I’d have to promise them I’d reprimand you firmly.  
  
That text had to hold them both over until Ephram arrived to pick Freddie up, switching over to one of the more tony cars rather than drive his pickup or the police jeep. “Look, I’m decent, too,” Ephram said after they’d buckled up and smooched. “I put on one’a them outfits you made me keep at work for when I gotta do something what calls for me to be fancy.”  
  
He sat back proudly for Freddie’s approval, then leaned over and kissed his fairy again, more soundly, before resuming his position. “It’s real hard to stop kissing you sometimes, y’know. Since you’re designed for it and all.”  
  
Licking the taste of Ephram from his lips, Freddie gave an appreciative smile as he looked over his husband’s chosen attire. “You look wonderful,” he said. “So good, in fact, that I’d be surprised if you didn’t inspire more than a few inappropriate little fantasies when you left the office this afternoon, darling. They’ll all be lining up for the chance to bring you your coffee tomorrow morning.” And he grinned as Ephram closed the distance between them again, making a soft approving sound as he was kissed just a little deeper and longer, both of them lingering over it, before his witch settled back into the driver’s seat.  
  
“Well then,” the fairy replied, reaching over to rest his left hand comfortably on Ephram’s thigh as he drove, and rubbing gently, “-it’s a very good thing I never really want you to stop, now isn’t it? Especially,” he teased, “-as I know how you’d hate to stand between me and my calling.”  
  
“Oh!” Freddie’s eyes lit up as he remembered what he’d wanted to say when he got into the car, his eyes full of cheek, “And just for the record, Sheriff, if they took that horrific chawanmushi off the menu, I think that more than qualifies as above and beyond the call of civic duty, and that I should get some sort of reward for my community mindedness.”  
  
“Though,” he chuckled, “-I might still opt for that firm reprimand…”  
  
Freddie gave Ephram’s leg a squeeze, grinning, “And I’d apologize to the nokken, if I were you, sweetheart. Too much of that rubbish and they’ll be back on children again before the week is out.”  
  
“Aw, c’mon, now,” Ephram demurred, pleased at Freddie’s compliments but still automatically deflecting them. “I’m an old married man! All them pretty young things at the station, they got better objects to admire than my tired ass.” He grinned at Freddie, lifting his fairy’s hand from his thigh to kiss it before returning it to its rightful place.  
  
Freddie made a dismissive noise at the idea of there being anything better to admire than Ephram, and then smiled softly as his hand was kissed. “Your arse is many things, my darling,” he said with a chuckle, “-but tired is not one of them.”  
  
He leaned over and pressed his lips to the corner of his witch’s mouth. “…though I do rather like the idea that everyone knows you’re spoken for in all the ways that matter…”  
From the moment Freddie said _oh!_ in that tone that sounded like the pop of a champagne cork, Ephram knew there was going to be something deliciously self-satisfied following it. And sure enough, Freddie boasted about his vendetta against the inferior custard, accent hitting all the right notes to make him sound posh, bratty, and sexy all at once, and Ephram felt his thigh tighten under the warmth and weight of Freddie’s hand.  
  
“My greedy lil dumpling,” Ephram laughed, sounding every bit as smitten as he was. “You wanna be rewarded and punished so you don’t miss out on anything, huh? Well, I hate to disappoint you…” He left that there long enough to introduce some doubt and make his pretty fairy suffer a little before finishing, “…so I won’t. I might just fuck you in the back alley behind the gallery. Both of them things, punishment and reward together like that, uh–” Ephram fished around in his head for a moment, “–Moebius strip. Yeah, like that.”  
  
That Ephram didn’t seem to feel that his particular efforts to improve the overall quality of life in Soapberry Springs were quite as worthy of accolade as Freddie did didn’t bother the fairy in the slightest. He grinned, having made his husband laugh, glorying in the little endearment, and fairly certain that he was about to be rewarded regardless…  
  
…only to have his face fall again, the beginnings of a pout settling in his eyes and on his lips, when he was suddenly faced with possibility that he might actually be left empty-handed; Ephram leaving a very pregnant pause before finally giving in and teasing just the sort of deliciously meted-out sanction that Freddie had been angling for.  
  
Biting his lip around a smile, the fairy shifted slightly in his seat, Ephram’s words already humming through his blood and making him want it; making it so that he could almost smell damp pavement and feel the rough scrape of the brickwork against his skin. “See, darling?” he murmured, “You never give yourself enough credit. You didn’t need me to explain a Möbius strip at all…”  
  
“Only ‘might’ though?” Freddie pushed, his fingertips playing along Ephram’s inseam as he looked up again, meeting his eyes. “Tell me, sweetheart - just how badly do I have to behave in order to provoke something a bit more… definitive?”  
  
It was an almost impossible feat to stop looking at Freddie when he was in this kind of mood, blue eyes sparkling and flirty, voice shirring along with that throaty heat. “Christ Almighty,” Ephram began in the tone he used to scold with, but he couldn’t keep a grin from splitting his face, “you gonna make me drive straight off the road, kitten. Tell you what–”  
  
He pulled up at the art gallery, parking behind it and turning the engine off so he could turn slightly in his seat to look at his terrible little fairy. “–you behave yourself and let us get through this meeting with Ms. Poppleworth and look at what other work she’s done, and I promise, honey, I will make it damn well worth your while.” Ephram looked pointedly over at the alley adjacent to the gallery. “You already been bad enough to earn a punishment, now let’s see how good you can be. Plus…” Ephram’s grin changed in tenor from authoritative to somewhat sheepish, “…I’m gonna need your artistic eye to help figure out what the hell this lady wants with me and how she plans to take pictures of me.”  
  
Arriving at the gallery, Ephram stopped the car, parking and turning to face Freddie as he delivered his instructions firmly - the fairy making only a token effort to tamp down on his smile as he tracked Ephram’s gaze over to the alley. “I’ll be as good as gold,” he promised, the gleam of mischief still dancing in his eyes.  
  
But when Ephram’s demeanor shifted to something slightly less self-possessed, recognizing that he’d need Freddie’s help to evaluate the artistic merit of Ms. Poppleworth’s work, Freddie’s smile softened, and he nodded. “Of course, love,” he said. “We’ll see what she does - the tone of her work - and we’ll go from there, yeah?”  
  
The fairy reached for his husband’s hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “I would never let anyone make you look foolish, sweetheart. Not this woman or anyone else.”  
  
He parted his lips for the kiss when it came, returning his witch’s ardour, and then grinned when Ephram stole another on the heels of the first, allowing himself to be pulled close; the massage of his folded wings through his clothes drawing a soft rumble of appreciation before they separated again. “If I were a figment of your imagination, darling,” he teased gently, “-I wouldn’t be nearly so difficult to manage…”

Cupping Freddie’s cheek, Ephram leaned in for a kiss, licking his lips afterwards. The taste of his husband was familiar by now but never lost its appeal, and Ephram snatched another, unable to show any restraint. “I still can’t believe sometimes you’re real,” he said, wrapping his arms around Freddie’s broad back, rubbing along the ridges of the fairy’s folded wings with the balls of his thumbs. “I still can’t believe you walked down my dock that night and I knew I’d love you forever.” Sentimentality was something Ephram indulged in sparingly, but Freddie had a literal physical need for such declarations of love.

Freddie couldn’t help the way he smiled again when Ephram said that he’d love him forever, the sentiment not something that Freddie would ever tire of hearing spoken aloud.  
  
He was almost entirely able by now not to question it; not to allow Ephram’s willingness to set him adrift, only a year ago, to colour his belief in the truth of that statement. And this time, he was the one to steal a kiss, murmuring, “Then we’re even, sweetheart, because I’m still amazed that forever is something I’m able to inspire,” before climbing out of the jeep.  
  
Making their way to the door, Freddie held it for his husband, following him through, and then took Ephram’s hand again; leading him slowly through the space, and giving the gallery assistant - Geneva, if memory served - a nod and a smile as they passed, that small inclination of his head enough to allow them to proceed on their own without interruption.  
  
“Alright, darling,” he said quietly, flashing Ephram a small grin, “-let’s see if Soapberry’s own Ms. Poppleworth can give Arbus and Avedon a run for their money, yeah?”  
  
Ephram was a self-confident person in the bigger scheme of things – he could evaluate his skills and weaknesses with some accuracy, given that he’d worked very hard for those skills – and despite his being somewhat disparaging of his own looks he knew well that he had a certain something that made him appealing. But his fear of being made to look foolish could overwhelm the rest of it, sending him panicking at the prospect of being found out or mocked as nothing but hillbilly trash. So he was unspeakably grateful that Freddie promised not to let that happen, with that firm tone he used when he was being protective.  
  
It bolstered Ephram’s spirits as they approached the door, and he said, “Nope, you’re wrong on that one, hon. If you was just in my made-up imagination I’d have you be just as troublesome as you are now.” His eyes crinkled in amusement as he gave Freddie a sweeping once-over, gaze hot and appreciative. “I like you with your streak of wildness. Fairy mischief is the best kind.”  
  
Still, despite Ephram not feeling as nervous as before, he squeezed Freddie’s hand when his husband clasped them together and brought them through. “Ma’am,” Ephram said to the assistant, touching his knuckles to his forehead. Geneva smiled back at them both, slightly fairy-dust glazed, and went back to her business.  
  
Ephram glanced back at the assistant, who seemed entirely unaware or uncaring that they were there now, and back at Freddie. “You lil minx. Thank you.”

Freddie smiled as Ephram kissed him. “You’re welcome, love. I rather thought we’d both prefer to look around in our own time today.”  
  
“And as I’ve been in here enough at this point for them to know that I’m much more likely to get my money out when I haven’t got three assistants trailing after me, nattering on about negative space, they’ll wait for me to indicate when I’d like some attention."  
  
Ephram kissed right above Freddie’s eyebrow and approached a display of photographs, figuring they might as well start there since that was the proposal. “These all look like old Polaroids,” Ephram said after a moment, perplexed. He craned in closer, squinting, and amended, “…oh, of atronachs! Lookit all their horns, Freddie.” He reeled his fairy closer, dropping his voice to match the quiet tone Freddie’d adopted. “They look like a family, maybe? There’s resemblances.” Ephram liked that idea, accepting it as the correct interpretation without paying any mind to the sign next to the collection that named it “Internment”.  
  
The fairy followed his husband over to the first piece that had caught Ephram’s eye, smiling to himself as he was drawn closer, enjoying the quiet rumble of his witch’s voice as he mused on the photographs - though when he saw the name of the collection, he made sure to point it out. “The name of a piece is often just as important as the physical work itself, darling. It can change the resonance of the aesthetic; enhance the encounter and deepen the experience as it adjusts your thinking… Because art has an ability to disrupt and challenge customary expectations - to reveal the limitations of what we think we know - and when you look at it, when you really see it, you should feel ... involved with it somehow.”  
  
“...it isn’t a distraction from reality, it’s the vehicle that reality shows itself though....”  
  
Freddie went quiet for a moment, then grinned, laughing lightly and rolling his eyes at himself. “Fucking hell - all that just sounds like a load of pretentious rubbishy art-wank and navel-gazing, doesn’t it? Just ignore me, love - I’m overexcited to have you here to rabbit on to, and I’m all but guaranteeing you’ll never want to come back again.”  
  
“No,” Ephram protested quietly, looking at Freddie. He reached out and touched a strand of his fairy’s perfectly groomed brown hair, smoothing it over one pointed ear. “No, it don’t sound rubbishy at all. It’s perfect.”  
  
They moved on to a new piece. “The interesting thing about photography though, is that it’s been rather tiredly debated back and forth for years as to whether or not photography actually qualifies as art - which, obviously, is bloody ridiculous. Photographs can sing on a gallery wall just as beautifully as paintings; they aren’t in competition. They can each ask questions, occupy their own space, make their own rules... it’s idiotic to think otherwise.”  
  
The fairy glanced up at his husband, smiling again. “Which is why, darling - under the right artist - I think you’ll make an absolutely breathtaking subject.”  
  
Looking at the new piece, Ephram tipped his head to regard it, his gaze following the shapes and shadows as Freddie talked about the art occupying its own space. That particularly struck Ephram, and he waited a beat before he turned to take in Freddie’s smile.  
  
Reaching out to clasp Freddie’s hand again, Ephram said, “I know I can’t go round with you on your other jobs like Cardero can, like Ruby did that time, but I still wanna know you – this way. This way.” He lifted his chin to point at the wall. “Somethin’ you’re as passionate about as art. I mean, this is a huge part of your life, Freddie. This is what sustained you for so long, and you know so much about it, God, it’s fuckin’ incredible.” Turning fully, Ephram snugged an arm around Freddie’s waist, pulling him in closer and dipping his head to kiss those familiar, warm lips over and over. “I know bout them pretty lil eggies and how you can forge em,” Ephram murmured, “but I always wanted to see you with art. I love seeing you passionate about things.”  
  
One more long, lingering kiss, and then Ephram moved away so they could continue their browsing. “I like the way you said that bout photographs,” the witch said thoughtfully. “That they can ask questions and take up space and make their own rules. It sounds like the way I wanna live, to tell you the God’s own truth.”   
  
Freddie smiled, warmth radiating through him, when Ephram told him that he wanted to know him this way too; that he wanted to touch this part of Freddie the same way that he did the rest of him. Wanted to see it, and be familiar with it, and get close to it simply because the fairy considered it important.  
  
That for Ephram, that was reason enough.  
  
“Sweetheart,” he said softly, “-if you mean that, I...” Freddie beamed. “…...’d love it. I’d absolutely love it.”  
  
He thought of some of the exhibitions he’d missed this year - Anish Kapoor at MACRO, Cy Twombly at Centre Pompidou, Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrors - and tried to imagine what it would have been like to share those things with his witch; to marry the things he loved together that way. And he returned his husband’s kisses with a yearning kind of joy, wondering if he’d ever really be able to make Ephram understand the way he made him feel.  
  
(Wishing, for maybe the first time in his life, that he really was an artist - because, to his way of thinking, nothing else could ever truly be capable of translating the depth of that emotion.)  
  
“I mean it, of course I mean it.” Ephram put both hands on Freddie’s hips and waggled him a little in an effort to assure his fairy that his desire to have Freddie introduce him to the art that was so central to his husband’s life was true and genuine. “It would be the best way to get to know art anyhow – you know how I like talking things out to figure out what I feel about em. Having my own personal art expert along would keep me from feeling like everything’s going over my head.”  
  
Freddie laughed, the smile on his face bright as Ephram wiggled him about, feeling genuinely lit up by the notion of exposing his husband to his favourite pieces, and the beauty of the art world as a whole. “In that case, my darling,” he said, slipping his arms around Ephram’s neck and kissing his lips, “-you and I are going to need to do some travelling.”  
  
“Not only to galleries-” the fairy grinned, “- because, believe me, love, I’ve got a list of those as long as my arm - but to see my collection as well, yeah?” He kissed his witch again, excited by the prospect. “You could help me choose what to finally bring over. If you’d like to?”  
  
His lips still tingling, blood buzzing in his veins, Freddie followed when Ephram finally broke away and moved on; keeping pace and keeping close as his lover studied the other pieces, musing on what Freddie had said. “Are you so sure that you don’t already live that way, darling?” the fairy asked softly, genuinely curious. “Because it seems to me,” he took Ephram’s hand again, threading their fingers together, “-that if you didn’t, I wouldn’t be here with you now....”  
  
“If you didn’t, there wouldn’t have been a place for me in your life. Not like this, at least....”  
  
A few sculptures came next, body parts split open to reveal neat and slightly nauseating rows of seashells beneath. “Ugh,” Ephram grunted without thinking. “My cousin Melody June – we used to call her Mim but after college she din’t want nobody calling her that no more – she would make things like this. Get em displayed here and there with folks calling em outsider art.” He rolled his eyes. “I can whittle and make canjos and whirlygigs. Does that count as outsider art?”  
  
Freddie listened as Ephram spoke of his experience with ‘outsider art’, before replying with a bit of a smile, “Well, first off, I don’t know what a ‘canjo’ is, my love, so I can’t really speak to that - but...” the fairy’s expression turned more thoughtful, “-I do think that people are very quick to label things. Art Brut, outsider art, Neuve Invention, Art Singulier… folk art, self-taught, visionary, intuitive, naïve... The art world loves it’s little boxes. Critics, galleries, dealers… whereas artists just care about the work. About the feeling. The meaning, and the matter, and the experience.”  
  
“And that’s where art lives, sweetheart. Deep in your chest, and right in the pit of your stomach.”  
  
“That’s where everything that matters lives... don’t you think?”  
  
Ephram flushed with pleasure when Freddie pointed out that he was already living the philosophy that Freddie had outlined and rubbed his free hand over his hair as he squeezed Freddie’s with the other. “Maybe,” he dithered. “Yeah, maybe that’s so, and if it is then I’m mighty glad for it.” _For you_ , was the unspoken addition. _For this_.  
  
Still close enough to touch as they drifted on through the room, Freddie’s smile softened when he saw the way that Ephram’s cheeks coloured at the thought that he’d already achieved the sort of freedom he’d professed an aspiration for, and that Freddie himself was evidence of that; his heart fluttering a little at the squeeze of his hand, murmuring, “I am too, Ephram. I don’t think I’ve ever been gladder of anything else.”  
  
With a snorting laugh, Ephram explained, “A canjo is a banjo you make yourself out of a can – usually one’a them square oil cans, y’know? Got a nice sound to it, thin and sharp, like a creek bed. I’ll make one so you can hear it one time.”  
  
The art movements that Freddie listed weren’t familiar to Ephram, but the sentiment that followed definitely was. Delivered in that sonorous voice of Freddie’s when he was particularly at ease, feeling safe and loved and clever, it made Ephram feel as though deep in his chest and the pit of his stomach were filled with syrupy light. “Jesus,” he said, his own voice gone somewhat gaspy, “keep this up and I’m gonna take you out back to the car before we even meet–"  
  
“Ms. Poppleworth sent a message,” one of the gallery attendants piped up, interrupting Ephram’s lusty threats. It took a beat before the witch was able to shake hot desire out of his brain enough for that to register, and he frowned, glancing at Freddie. Before he could ask what it was, the attendant handed him a gilt-edged, light blue card upon which was written in peacock-coloured ink in impeccable cursive: Go into my office.  
  
“It’s right through those doors!” the attendant announced chirpily, pointing up a short flight of stairs towards a pair of doors in the same blue.  
  
Freddie grinned again at the promise of a canjo, knowing that his husband would likely be able to wring the sort of music from it that Freddie would never normally have expected such a thing capable of. Grateful, again, to be able to call this man his own. To know that in spite of the current strained state of his relationship with Ruby, and the sudden loss of his friend Nuadia, that whatever Ephram saw when he looked at him, he didn’t find Freddie wanting.  
  
In fact, the heat in Ephram’s eyes, and in his voice, as he threatened to take Freddie back out to the car - and the promise of what waited for him there - was strong enough to tunnel Freddie’s attention entirely. And he’d only just licked his lips to respond in kind when the appearance of the assistant - not Geneva this time; this girl Freddie didn’t recognize - shattered the moment; wrenching his focus back to Fei Fei Poppleworth, and their reason for having come to the gallery in the first place.  
  
The fairy glanced at the card held in Ephram’s large hand before throwing a small pouting scowl at the attendant’s retreating back. “And there’s the trouble with artists in a nutshell,” he muttered hypocritically, “ -they love bloody dramatics” - not, at the moment, able to see the number of very strong similarities between his species and the artistically inclined. Though he smiled shortly thereafter, knowing that the backseat would still be an option after Ms. Poppleworth had given her pitch - and still more than a little excited by the idea of Ephram-as-muse. “But still, let’s go hear what she’s got to say, yeah?”  
  
Only when they arrived in her office - a tastefully-appointed space that held minimal furniture but showcased both a Djordje Ozbolt and an equally compelling Emma Bennett - there was no-one there to speak at all. Instead, there was another card sitting in the centre of an otherwise unadorned desk, bearing the same penmanship and shade of ink as the one they already possessed.  
  
It read, ‘ _I’ll see you tonight in Metaxourgio. The car is already waiting outside. Get in and enjoy the journey._ ’  
  
Freddie picked it up with a grin, and passed it to Ephram. “Are you willing to trust her, sweetheart?” he asked, trying not to give too much away with his own enthusiasm. “Because if she’s talking about where I think she’s talking about, I promise you won’t be disappointed.”  
  
The fairy looked at his husband hopefully. “But you will need to take a personal day tomorrow - and maybe a few days after that....”  
  
\---  
  
A few days was understating it. Even with the swiftness of Ms. Poppleworth’s personal jet to get them there (Ephram had gotten so worked up with excitement at being on a jet when he’d never been in a plane that he’d hauled Freddie to the back and pinned him down and given him a vigorous seeing-to), it was clear once they reached Metaxourgio that this would take time. Not just for whatever Fei Fei had planned, but because this was Ephram’s much dreamed-about Greece. Actually being there with Freddie, alighting from the jet into the Mediterranean warmth that was completely unlike back home, didn’t so much overwhelm Ephram as get his curiosity running in overdrive.  
  
They were taken from the airport to a small but neatly appointed flat in the city, where the driver provided them with keys to the home and a small case containing a supply of Euros but more oddly, a substantial stash of drachmas both coin and note. Another blue card from Fei Fei accompanied the money, reading, _there are those who still prefer the old currencies_. “The madam will meet with you on your third morning here,” the driver said to Freddie. He couldn’t say it to Ephram because the witch was off exploring their rooms with exclamations popping up regularly.  
  
Glancing towards the bedroom where Ephram was hooting delightedly at something, the driver told Freddie, “We trust that you will be able to occupy your time and acquire whatever you might need in that time without our assistance. Until the third morning, Mr. Watts.” And with that, off went the driver.  
  
Ephram came rushing out, barrelling into Freddie and managing at the last moment to wrap his arms around his fairy and stagger them to remain upright. “There was folks talkin’ Greek right outside the window!” Ephram gushed. “There’s Greek writing on stuff! Because that’s normal here!” Hearing himself, Ephram laughed a little self-consciously, scrunching one side of his nose and mouth. “You’re gonna have to forgive me for sounding like a goddamn yokel,” he told Freddie, tipping his head down so their noses brushed. “More’n usual, that is.” Grinning, Ephram walked Freddie over to a window, holding him tight as they took in the view.  
  
Smiling as Ephram’s excitement and enthusiasm drifted in from the other room, Freddie nodded his understanding at Poppleworth’s driver, thanking him and asking that he extend the same to his employer. “We’re very much looking forward to meeting her,” Freddie told him; and as another gleeful exclamation sounded from out of their line of sight, the fairy’s smile broadened. “And you’re right,” he added, walking the man to the door, “-we’ll be more than able to keep ourselves entertained and taken care of in the meantime.”  
  
He bid Fei Fei’s minion goodbye and shut the door behind him just in time to find himself caught up in his witch’s arms, and nearly sent sprawling - and he grabbed at his husband, laughing and clutching him tightly for balance, as Ephram righted them and propelled them towards the window, which looked out onto a narrow street decorated with scattered guerrilla gardening, and anonymous art pieces.  
  
Metaxourgio lived and breathed its art, and Freddie, despite his deep and abiding love of all things expensive and opulent, loved it here; the steady thump of its creative pulse - its odd sense of urgency and scrappy autonomy within the ancient splendour of Athens - exciting him since the first moment he’d arrived however many years before, drawn and attracted by its galleries.  
  
The Breeder was his favourite though - and when he’d first seen Metaxourgio on Fei Fei’s blue card, he’d assumed, having seen her taste reflected in her office, that she and whatever she was working on, whatever she wanted Ephram for, must be tied to it somehow. But now that they were here, and the artist herself had opted to remain out of sight, he’d given up on assumption altogether. Whatever she had in mind, they would know it soon enough. And until then, he was here, in Greece, with the man that he loved more than anything - and absolutely nothing else mattered.  
  
Freddie grinned as Ephram held him before turning his face up to kiss at his lover’s jaw. “First off,” he said, “-I don’t have to forgive you for anything, because you don’t sound like a yokel, love - you sound excited, which you’re perfectly entitled to be.” The fairy wiggled a little, leaning back against Ephram’s chest as they took in the view, laughing softly. “I’m a bit excited myself.”  
  
“So,” he said slowly, turning in his husband’s arms and wrapping his own around Ephram’s middle, beaming brightly, “-what would like to do first, darling? I mean, we’re in Athens, so there’s all sorts of sight-seeing to be done, if you’re interested. Or...” Freddie paused, his eyes sparkling, “...we could go to the beach? September is the perfect time of year to be here, and if we go rent a car, I can think of two gorgeous beaches no further than an hour’s drive away - whichever one you happened to choose.”  
  
“The first is organised - it’s a proper ‘beach’ and all that. A bit touristy... bars and restaurants nearby; swimwear’s optional, and male attention is all but guaranteed...”  
  
“And the second is entirely more remote,” he smiled. “So much so, that it’s likely to just be you, me and the Mediterranean - and maybe a smattering of other like-minded people in search of a little sunshine and privacy. Though there is a lovely little tavern within walking distance.”  
  
“But it’s whatever you like, love. Are you hungry? We can take a wander round here, if that suits you...”  
  
The fairy grinned. “Greece is all yours, sweetheart; all I need to know is how to give it to you.”  
  
“Ohhhhhhhhhh,” Ephram said with a grin, “don’t ask me what I wanna do first, not when you’re lookin’ like you are and there’s a bed right over yonder.” He kissed Freddie soundly, and continued, “–but I reckon we’ll make time enough for that, too, so might as well go out and see something.”  
  
Because as much as the two of them were undeniably running hot (nothing new there, considering that between them there was a whole helluva lot of sex drive and adoration both), Ephram had noted that sparkle in Freddie’s blue eyes. The prospect of glamorous ritzy international mischief they could get into, the opportunity to spread his wings outside the confines of small town Soapberry like he used to.  
  
He loved seeing that look in Freddie’s eyes, but there was some melancholy to it. That his clever, urbane, glittering fairy had packed up on all of that fun to settle down in the slower and much less dazzling life they had now. It wasn’t that Ephram doubted Freddie’s ability to weigh the two and make his own decision, just that … he wished that Freddie hadn’t had to make it.  
  
“The beach,” Ephram decided, sliding his hands up Freddie’s sides. “The first one. I want some sun and I want salt water and I want you bare-ass nekkid so’s all them other fellers git ravenous jealous of what I got.” Because of course they would be, there was no doubt of that in Ephram’s mind. “Then the next time we kin go somewheres more secluded, and I’ll git to see those gorgeous wings all unfurled out in the sunshine. Like you’re straight outta Greek mythology.” Ephram dropped his voice to a confidential whisper, joy running through it. “Because dumplin’, we’re in Greece.”  
  
There was a part of Freddie - a very insistent, hungry part - that would have been quite happy to stay right where they were for the next few hours, and do nothing more than put that bed through its paces. But he knew, as Ephram had said, that they would more than make time for that. Just like he knew that Greece was waiting for them - and that effectively, Ephram had been waiting his whole life for it; and Freddie had no desire to make him wait any longer.  
  
He wanted to immerse his husband in the Grecian sunshine and experience. To be with him as he drank it all in. To show him, even just a little bit, what the world could look like when all its doors were opened, and your only responsibility was to your own happiness, and that of ones you cared for.  
  
So when Ephram cast his vote for the first beach Freddie had described, his big hands warm and wonderful as they caressed the fairy’s sides, Freddie had lit up into a grin, tugging his witch down into one more kiss. “You can have absolutely anything you want, my darling,” he promised when he finally pulled away again, taking Ephram’s hands and pulling him towards the door.  
  
“But first, we’re going to need a few things.”  
  
Freddie called a taxi as they headed down to the street, and had it take them to rent a car of their own - a gleaming Maserati Granturismo S - whose keys he pressed immediately into Ephram’s hand, beaming with delight. And from there, he programmed the sat nav to direct them to Glyfada’s high street; watching Ephram as he drove, and toying, all the way there, with the idea of ducking his head, and sucking his husband off at the same time.  
  
He decided against it, ultimately. Ephram had taken being press-ganged into driving a new and expensive car in an unfamiliar city with very good grace, and Freddie didn’t want to cause him any undo stress - and when they arrived, he simply kissed his beautiful man deeply, promising, “Half an hour at the most, sweetheart - we weren’t given a chance to pack, and we’ll need things while we’re here.”  
  
And, reasonably true to his word, they were on the road again fifty minutes later, the back of the Maserati loaded down with enough clothes and toiletries, accessories and essentials, to see them through the next few days - whatever sort of occasion might arise; both men now clad in suitable beach attire and sunglasses.  
  
Freddie directed Ephram to the place he had in mind - only getting them turned around once, which he thought was rather good, considering he’d forgotten the name of the beach entirely, and hadn’t been in Athens in a good 6 years - and once they were parked, seaside necessities under their arms and slung over their shoulders in bags, Freddie took Ephram’s hand again, lacing their fingers together, and led him down into the throng.  
  
The beach was crowded, but not overpoweringly so; glistening male bodies spread out on colourful blankets and towels, lounge chairs and mats, in various states of undress - better than half entirely nude, the rest clad in tiny swimsuits, and towels, and the odd set of trunks - against the bright white sand, whilst still more bobbed in the water; and Freddie quickly spotted a place for them, drawing Ephram along with him to claim it, and then spreading out their things. “Here’s good, yeah?” he smiled, pushing up on his toes to press a kiss to his husband’s lips, before pulling the shirt he was wearing off over his head, his wings already glamoured away.  
  
He dropped it on the blanket, righting his now-crooked sunglasses with a chuckle, as he stripped off his shorts too, revealing the efforts of his summer’s worth of sunbathing.  
  
His shorts and espadrilles quickly joined the rest of his discarded kit, and the fairy could feel more than one pair of eyes on him as he rummaged for the sunblock (he could heal Ephram if he burned, of course, but he was rather looking forward to the act of application), before looking up at him to grin, as he gestured down the beach to an outcropping of rocky cliffs, “Over there’s where the serious cruising goes on, love, if you want to have a look later.”  
  
“And over there,” he pointed in the other direction, towards a collection of beachfront taverns and restaurants; snatches of music audible on the breeze, along with the chatter and laughter and the general sound of people enjoying themselves, “-we’ll find drinking, and dancing, and some excellent food.”  
  
“I’ll take you to dinner later, darling,” he grinned, “-and you’ll think you’ve died and gone to Heaven.”  
  
Ephram had never seen anything like it, never dreamed of it. Every poor dream he’d had of Greece was blotted out entirely by the reality of it and made even more momentous by having this man at his side, getting them lost and watching Ephram drive like he was a prince driving a carriage. It would have been easy to get lost in the unreal perfection of everything – Ephram having plenty of skill in retreating inside his head – but when they arrived at the beach, there was no way that such a thing would be possible.  
  
He was glad Freddie was holding his hand when they looked out over the beach, Ephram goggling at the well-mannered bacchanalia laid out on the sand. “Good Lord, honey,” he croaked as Freddie towed him to the spot he’d picked out. “This is … this is crazy.” But he was grinning as he said it, eyes alight watching Freddie strip so wantonly out of his clothes, gaze darting around to find whose hungry looks alighted on his deliciously golden darling. He had to give up after a few minutes, there were just too many – and knowing that was getting Ephram a sight more turned on than he wanted at the moment.  
  
“Yeah,” he said lazily, sitting down on one of their mats and pushing his sunglasses up onto his head, already feeling like a well-kept animal basking in the sunshine. “The food’s gonna blow my mind. I wanna try everything. I wanna eat all of your favourite things, Freddie honey, and dance with you and drink with you for as long as we can.” Ephram looked at Freddie standing there with the sunblock and felt a swell of love crash through him, the waves and breakers providing a soundtrack. “C’mere.”  
  
When Freddie came over, Ephram pulled him down onto his sprawled legs, holding Freddie in one arm and stroking his hair with the other hand, not terribly gently. “We’re gonna go down to that other side of the beach later, kitten,” he said in a low, greedy voice, “and maybe you can pick out some lucky feller who gets to fuck you while I watch and tell’im what he should do with you.” Ephram clasped the nape of Freddie’s neck, his eyes intense on the fairy, an arrogant sort of passion in his expression. “You’re _mine_ , after all, right? My sweet darlin’ boy.”  
  
Whether or not they actually got around to any such thing was irrelevant to Ephram; talking about it, the image of it in their minds, of Freddie’s body being used as per his witch’s instructions, that was where the arousal lived. Filthy threats and promises spoken into Freddie’s charmingly pointed ear, intended to make that bee-stung mouth redden, fall open, gasp.  
  
Ephram intended to spend every single moment of this trip being happy and fulfilled, and blessedly, that meant adoring and serving his precious king.  
  
That Ephram seemed so taken with everything he’d seen of Greece thus far - his eyes shining with what looked to be a genuine soul-deep happiness to be there, and to be with Freddie - brought the fairy a kind of joy that he would have struggled to find adequate words for if he’d been asked to define it. And already he was wondering just how long he could drag it out and make it last. How many days and nights he could convince his witch to spend here with him, cloistered away from anything and everything that might seek to intrude upon them.  
  
He wasn’t sure any amount of time would ever feel like enough - but whatever they could manage, whatever sort of honeymoon bubble they could snatch together, Freddie intended to make it count.  
  
And when Ephram proclaimed his desire to indulge in everything they could together, from his place sprawled gloriously loose-limbed on their mat in the sand, for a moment, all the fairy could do was beam down at him - eager to do everything at once.  
  
“Well, that’s good, darling,” he smiled cheekily, “-because I was going to make you dance with me tonight whether you wanted to or not.”  
  
“I’ll feed you feta ravasaki and dolmades with my fingers,” the fairy grinned, “-and we’ll drink ouzo and tsipouro until dancing and fucking are the only things in the world that seem worthwhile.”  
  
Sunblock in hand, knowing that Ephram would need it sooner rather than later, Freddie still dropped it on the mat beside them when Ephram beckoned, and went happily into his husband’s embrace; letting out a soft rumble of approval at the possessive way he was held, and the roughness in the stroke of his hair.  
  
A rumble that quickly turned into a stifled moan when his witch began to tell him all about the things they might get up to before the sun went down; Ephram’s brilliant blue eyes hot and intoxicating, gleaming with what seemed to be an entitled sort of lust.  
  
It was the sort of look that went directly to the fairy’s cock - and he inhaled slowly, trying to will himself decent.  
  
“All yours, love,” Freddie breathed, bringing their lips together and kissing Ephram deeply and hungrily, as though he’d been starved for it. Picturing that same look burning even brighter in his witch’s eyes as he watched another man push inside him; imagining the deep rasp of his husband’s voice, the burnt sugar of his accent, as he instructed a stranger how best to tease Freddie, or to make him cum.  
  
And then he pulled back again, just far enough to up the stakes of their little game, and murmured, “Or maybe you could make me take you both…”  
  
Tapping Freddie’s throat, Ephram demanded, “Make it visible. For long as we’re here in Greece, I wanna see you wearing the collar I made for you. I want everybody to see it, baby, to know you might be a slut but you’re one who’s owned by a man already.” His voice dived deeper as he continued, “…even when you’re taking both of us in your ass.”

As soon as the command was given, a combination of molten desire and fierce pride pooling low in his belly and thrumming through his veins, Freddie let the glamour he used to keep his collar out of sight fall, and rocked his hips, seating himself just a little bit more firmly against the bulge of Ephram’s still covered cock; wetting his lips as his witch’s voice sank lower.  
  
Because he did know. Ephram had and would push him harder and further than the fairy had ever allowed before. He would break him down with pleasure and then rebuild him with the same, over and over again…  
  
And Freddie would love it. He would moan, and beg, and plead for it.  
  
Owned by this man in every way that he _could_ be.  
  
Ephram pressed his mouth against Freddie’s, murmuring, “My naughty boy. Trying to push the limits so I’ll make sure you get ravished as thoroughly as possible, huh? You should know by now that I’ll drag you right out to them limits and past em, Freddie, there’s so many goddamn filthy awful things I wanna do to you–”  
  
“Tell me,” he said softly, nosing against Ephram’s cheek, “Every dirty terrible thing you want to do to me… I want to hear them all.” He paused as Ephram inhaled sharply, dragging his lips to the corner of his husband’s mouth and kissing him there; teasing as his naked cock swelled just a little bit more. “Please, Daddy?”  
  
After all, if he was going to be naughty, it wouldn’t do to employ half-measures.  
  
Freddie intoned the word that they’d incorporated into their lovemaking, daddy, and Ephram rumbled in his chest in response, kissing him back. “Don’t you try to sweet-talk me, Freddie,” he growled. “You’re gonna have to be a patient lil boy and then you’ll get to hear aaallll about the things Daddy’s gonna do to you, all the nasty ways he’s gonna use you.”  
  
It was a good thing that they’d gotten up instead of continuing on in that vein, or they’d end up giving an impromptu live sex show. And Ephram wasn’t ready to be arrested for public indecency this soon into their trip.  
  
And when Ephram pushed up to nudge his own burgeoning hardness against Freddie’s ass, groaning in frustration, the fairy did the same, wishing he’d insisted Ephram that strip before he’d sat down - knowing that the press of skin-on-skin would have been its own delicious sort of torture.  
  
Ephram drew a hard breath, both of them conscious of his cock starting to push up against Freddie’s weight in his lap. “Jesus Christ, honey,” he groaned, “I’m gonna be fuckin’ rock hard for you this whole time, ain’t I?” He looked woebegone, fingers tracing the intricate magical weave of Freddie’s collar, and then stood, lifting Freddie with him and setting him down on his feet.  
  
“Sunblock me,” Ephram said, stepping out of his own shorts and swim trunks, his prick twitching in the hopes of being buried inside of Freddie’s body soon. “Then let’s go in the water and I’ll fuck you on my hand. I need to feel you shuddering around me, Freddie, I need to make you cum.”  
  
Ephram looked so forlorn as he bemoaned what he believed would be his constant state of arousal while they were either on the beach, or in Greece itself (Freddie couldn’t be certain which he meant), the fairy couldn’t help but smile. Here and now, Ephram only had eyes for him - and there was nothing in the world Freddie loved better than that. Nothing as heady, or as wonderful, as knowing that he was what Ephram wanted; that nothing else could compete.  
  
And he may have let out a small wanton noise of his own when his witch touched his collar, now shining in the sun, and then picked them both up off the sand.  
  
Set on his feet again, his own needy arousal having ebbed for the moment to something manageable, Freddie watched hungrily as Ephram shed his clothes; his witch’s messy golden hair gleaming, thick cock hanging heavy between his long legs - hoping that the rest of the bathers nearby were eating their bloody hearts out. That they were sick with envy that this was his man. And when Ephram instructed him to fetch the sunblock and cover him, promising that everything Freddie was gagging for was waiting in the water - and that Ephram was just as desperate for it - the fairy didn’t waste any time.  
  
Collecting the tube from where he’d dropped it, he coated his hands and rubbed it slowly and sensuously into Ephram’s chest and shoulders, massaging it into the ropy muscles he loved to see at work. Down his husband’s back, over the planes of Ephram’s stomach, that smattering of spun-gold hair tickling at his palms as he worked his way lower, before finally getting on his knees to manage Ephram’s legs. Giving the cock he wanted so badly to taste a surreptitious nuzzle as he rubbed the sun cream into Ephram’s thighs.  
  
And when he was done, his own prick semi-swollen, Freddie dropped the sunscreen back on the mat, and tossed his sunglasses after it, taking Ephram’s hands, and drawing him wordlessly towards the shimmering turquoise water, almost light-headed with desire.  
  
The unquestioning obedience that Freddie met each of Ephram’s demands with went straight through him like cocaine, like meth – no, better than those, like _fairy dust_. He’d been gifted this precious, pretty jewel of a husband whose primary delight in life (okay, well, _one_ of his delights at least, Ephram didn’t begrudge him the others) was to fill Ephram’s life with happiness and ease. To take him out of the coffin-like confines of his upbringing and circumstances and show him the world, show him off to the world.  
  
And this generosity came from a man who had spent his boyhood and youth being shown over and over that nobody loved or wanted him, and Freddie's lone experience of love being a hideous deceit from a dangerous predator. When he was still so young and needy and vulnerable and the results of that manipulation had lasted right up until the present. It was a marvel that Freddie had survived with such a bright golden sunny-sweet heart after being denied love for so long.  
  
Freddie obligingly started to apply the sunblock to Ephram’s skin, taking his time, working it in with deft fingers. Like Ephram was a piece of art, or something his charming conman was itching to steal. Standing on the sand in the yolky-warm sunshine, their skin heating up where Freddie touched him, Ephram felt something inside of him give way. Some tight, gnarled knot that had grown into his viscera ages ago started to melt, as softly as dew dissolving a paper blossom.  
  
For a moment, Ephram was certain that he was going to pass out right there on the sand, frightened by what was happening inside him. He wanted to cry out or maybe just _cry_ … but then Freddie nudged his darling face against Ephram’s cock, and brought him back to the here and now. Where things suddenly seemed so much lighter, clear and free, fresh and pure in a way that Ephram hadn’t felt in a long, long time. Ephram rubbed a palm against the brand on his hip, feeling it dormant and serene, and then Freddie was tugging him towards the sea.  
  
Loping forward, Ephram swung Freddie into his arms and crashed them into the water, wading out to where it was deeper and taking a big breath, puffing his cheeks out to indicate that Freddie should do the same. Then he dunked them both, keeping Freddie clasped close when they came up. “I ain’t never gonna let you go, Freddie,” Ephram said, leaning in to kiss Freddie through the salt water on their lips. “You’s my treasure, that I found, and ain’t nothin’ gonna keep me from owning and loving and fucking you.”  
  
His words had started out fervent with adoration, but as Ephram went on they grew throatier, hoarser, more hungry. He’d taken them far enough out that the water was at a fine height for him but would require Freddie to remain constantly bobbing, so that Freddie would have to let Ephram hitch the fairy up against him and pin him there with one arm. A captured dragonfly. “You should glamour horns on me,” Ephram said, rubbing his bearded face against Freddie’s, “and then you could let your wings out. Folks’ll think we’s wearing costumes.”  
  
Really Ephram just wanted all of his husband’s erotic points exposed for his own greed; he was endlessly delighted by Freddie’s dragonfly wings and the response that touching them brought. “I’m gonna send you out on the street, darlin’ boy,” Ephram said, nipping at Freddie’s jawline as he pushed the pads of his fingers and thumb against Freddie’s hole to work it open. Salt water wasn’t much in the way of lube, but Ephram was well past caring; fairy dust could compensate for the rest. “And then I’ll cruise you in that Maserati, pick you up like the whore you are and take you back to my place. Give you three times what you usually get paid on the condition that I get to do _whatever I want_ with you.”  
  
He scissored his fingers in the deep, clenching heat of Freddie’s body before removing them, wrapping that arm around Freddie as well. “Get yourself on Daddy’s fuckin’ meat, boy,” Ephram ground out through his teeth. His cock felt like the skin would split, he was so hard, and the way that the water was swaying their pricks together didn’t help any. “I’m gonna dick you right here, so anyone can figure out what’s happening to you. They’ll get an eyeful of how good you take it, precious lil slut, and come evening?” Ephram moved one arm up Freddie’s back, taking hold of the collar from behind and yanking it. “They’s all gonna want a piece of you when I take you down to that beach. And you’ll have to take as many of them cocks up your ass as Daddy says, like a good boy, like a boy I can be proud of.”  
  
Freddie couldn’t keep himself from laughing in surprise when Ephram scooped him up and carried him off into the water, deeper and deeper, until they were far enough out, thanks to Ephram’s height, to be afforded as much privacy as was possible at a crowded beach on a beautiful afternoon.  
  
The fairy was too short himself to touch the bottom and keep breathing easily at the same time, but he didn’t care. He preferred to cling to his husband, to trust in his arms for support - and when Ephram indicated that he was about to dunk them, Freddie held his breath dutifully; wanting Ephram more than he wanted air when they came back up again. Returning his husband’s kisses with a shameless sort of need as Ephram clutched him tightly, his witch’s sweet words conveying the force of his ragged demanding lust just as clearly as they did his love.  
  
Ephram was everything that Freddie had always wished to have, everything he’d ever gone to sleep longing for, all wrapped up in one single glorious man.  
  
He was all the love and kindness, all the care, that the fairy would happily have bled for when he was young. All the praise and sweetness that Freddie’d believed could never be aimed at him. The strength and support that he’d seen at a distance but had never had for himself.  
  
He was raw animal sexuality. Dominance and masculinity. Need, and greed, and perfect possessive resolution.  
  
Gentle hands, and a gentler heart. Protective arms and quiet ferocity.  
  
Ephram saw Freddie - all of him - but still there was nothing there that he was afraid to touch and make his own. Nothing he shied away from; nothing he sought to eliminate or ignore.  
  
And somehow, wonderfully, they mirrored one another, and Freddie was able to provide Ephram with all the things that he needed too.  
  
So when his husband - his Daddy - suggested that he bring his wings out, that he hide them in plain sight with the aid of affectation and assumption, the fairy threw caution to the wind and exhaled a stream of silvery dust, blowing it up into Ephram’s hairline and creating a pair of horns that could have belonged to a satyr - though his knowledge of mythology was not so strong, nor his head so clear, as to know whether he’d erred on the side of Roman or Greek.  
  
Not that it mattered.  
  
What mattered, he thought, as he dragged his fingers through his witch’s wet beard, sucking at his lover’s tongue and nibbling on his lips, was that now he could give Ephram access to his wings.  
  
Only the top two sections jutted out of the water, but they trembled as Ephram broke away to bite at Freddie’s jaw, his blunt insistent fingers working their way into the fairy’s ass, making him hiss and whine at the stretch. And he slipped his arms around Ephram’s neck, holding tight and pulling himself up to ride them as they pushed deeper; panting and gasping when they grazed the right spot.  
  
“You… oh fuck… you can buy anything you that want, love…” Freddie breathed, his eyes heavy-lidded as he rolled his hips, the motion of the water and the press of Ephram’s cock against his working with the aching sweetness of the finger-fucking to make him muzzy-headed. “Dirty filthy things, yeah? Because that kind of money means all I ever say is _yes_ …”  
  
Ephram spread his fingers wide, and Freddie groaned loud, drawing the attention of the other swimmers not far off - though he failed to notice them at all. And when his witch withdrew those fingers suddenly, commanding the fairy onto his cock now, and yanking sharply on his collar, Freddie nodded as best he could with his throat still bared, his pupils blown wide as he stared up at the man he loved.  
  
But he needed mobility to obey, and the instant Ephram allowed it, he didn’t hesitate; lifting up high enough to reach between them and press the head of Ephram’s cock to his still tight hole, before sinking down heavily, gritting his teeth through the burn.  
  
And he didn’t take another breath until Ephram was buried to the hilt inside him; finally looking up again, meeting his husband’s eyes and rasping, “I’ll take every man here if it’ll make you happy, Daddy…”  
  
“…if it’ll make you proud to see your little whore turned out…”  
  
The slight added weight of his horns gave Ephram license, in a way, to indulge his more primal hungers to their full extent. Especially when it was accompanied by the jewel-toned glory of Freddie’s wings unfolding and Freddie giving in without a protest, agreeing to let himself be fucked seven ways from Sunday like it was the only thing he’d ever wanted.  
  
Maybe it was. Ephram sure as hell felt like it was the only thing he’d ever wanted.  
  
“Dirty filthy things for my filthy lil boy,” Ephram promised. “Cause you ain’t happy unless you’re being used as a goddamn cum dumpster, and Daddy knows that. And loves you enough to make sure you get treated the way you need.”  
  
Freddie did, unerringly, know what they both needed because he drove himself down onto Ephram’s cock even though it must have truly hurt to force his body to swallow that length whole. Ephram felt the sting and drag, and knew from his darling’s pained but determined face that it was much, much worse for him.  
  
And knowing that made him even _harder_.  
  
Usually Ephram kept a rein on his darker impulses with Freddie, careful not to get too rough with him or tread on emotional territory that was too sensitive. But this, Freddie fully impaled on his cock and looking up at him with such complete surrender, promising to submit himself to any debasement Ephram felt like subjecting him to, this was as close to permission as Ephram needed.  
  
“Oh, baby boy, it’ll make me so proud.” He kissed Freddie hard, sucking at his tongue as he dragged his knuckles down the thin strip of flesh between his lover’s wings and then his ragged thumbnail back up, knowing that he was leaving a deep pink streak. “That’s why I collared you, ain’t it? So you could do all these nasty whore things that other boys might not wanna do. You’ll do em, won’t you?”  
  
Ephram started to move his hips, simultaneously fucking Freddie onto his cock in short, brutal thrusts as if the fairy was a helpless toy he was using. His own warm, responsive sex doll. “Gonna rub you down with olive oil and chain you to the bed, skullfuck you good, slap that pretty face of yours until your slut mouth’s bleeding when I make you suck my cock again.” Nudging gently against Freddie’s face, Ephram kissed him with warm desire, a little tender check-in even while he was uttering threats and fucking Freddie hard enough to make the water slap faster and louder against their bodies.  
  
Dipping his arm below the water, Ephram swept it firmly up Freddie’s back, crushing those exquisite, sensitive wings tight as he changed his thrust from short and thick to long, plundering strokes. “Turned out ain’t the half of it,” he grunted. “Gonna get you fucked out exhausted, covered in cum.” Ephram pressed his mouth to Freddie’s ear, daring a little further: “Wash you off with my piss.”  
  
Ephram was, indeed, straying closer to the dark than Freddie cared for; teasing at things that the fairy shrank back from instinctively - his daddying slipping into a hungry growl in his desire to make Freddie bleed. But though the fairy stiffened in his arms, he didn’t pull away. Didn’t protest. He was too far down the rabbit hole, too overwhelmed by the savage fucking Ephram was throwing into him - grunting and keening as his witch used him, leaving no room for confusion to anyone nearby about what was happening; each shallow thrust hitting its mark until Freddie’s knuckles were white, and his bottom lip was bitten crimson - to do anything other than gasp and yield to the force of the here and now.  
  
His boundaries had become more elastic in the moment. In each snap of Ephram’s hips.  
  
His cock ached to be touched, rubbing between the two of them tortuously under the water, and his ass hurt even more from the brutality of the coupling - but Freddie knew that he could take it. Rough treatment didn’t phase him. He could be fucked raw, bruised, debased - Ephram could use his cock any way that he liked and Freddie would only want more. The pleasure - those sudden depth charges of quaking bliss rolling through his body, and the prideful joy of knowing that he was pleasing his man - too much to be denied.  
  
Degradation, though, was a step too far. Violence, cruelty, ugliness - those were things that Freddie wanted no part of.  
  
His grip on his own self-worth was too tenuous.  
  
His memories too vivid.  
  
But he trusted Ephram; and when his husband kissed him, warm and sweet and gentle, in spite of the merciless fervour of his thrusts, Freddie moaned into his lover’s mouth, and felt the elastic stretch just a little bit more.  
  
The added pressure on his wings in conjunction with Ephram’s abrupt change in the depth and pace of his strokes - his cock slowing slightly and pushing deeper, giving Freddie a sense of fullness that felt debauched and obscene - made him let out a keening sob, burying his face in his witch’s neck; the roll of his hips wanton and whorish as he chased after his rising orgasm.  
  
And, knowing that the way he felt right now, he’d agree to almost anything if it meant he’d be given permission to cum, the fairy just pressed his face further into the curve of Ephram’s neck and shoulder at the mention of piss, letting out a breathless whine, begging, “..oh god… I need to cum… Daddy, _please_ …”  
  
His body attuned entirely to Freddie’s (it was absolutely necessary to Ephram whenever he ventured down more depraved paths with his precious lover, so things didn’t go south real fast), Ephram felt when the fairy’s already-strained muscles tensed up at certain words, certain threats. But Freddie was looking at him with those limpid eyes, the witty blue sparkle of them almost swallowed completely with black, and the sounds he was making sure as hell didn’t resemble any _no_ that Ephram had ever heard or said himself. So he didn’t stop.  
  
When Freddie’s voice reached the pleading, keening stage and he pushed his face against his husband’s neck, Ephram slapped one hand to the back of Freddie’s neck, holding him there as he pressed his lips to Freddie’s pointed ear. “I’ll take care of you, baby,” Ephram muttered, feeling his balls tighten – a strange experience underwater – and his heartbeat hammering in his head. “Don’t I always, Freddie? Is there anywhere else you rather be than right here riding my prick? I know how much you want it and … how much you want _me_. Even when…”  
  
“Nowhere,” Freddie gasped against Ephram’s skin, the warm salt water of the Mediterranean splashing up into his mouth, “There’s nothing I want more than you… no-one’s ever… ever…”  
  
But he could barely even think anymore. Couldn’t speak.  
  
Ephram hadn’t timed it well, partly because he hadn’t planned to start a discussion and had just wandered there in the emotion of the moment; he burst in thick hot jets of cum on an outstroke, pushing back in with a loud harsh groan. Ephram kept fucking Freddie until all of the throes of his orgasm had been ridden out in deep nonstop stabs, and then pulled out. He held Freddie’s hips, staring at the fairy as if he was nothing short of a god descended to the earth, and then took a deep breath and ducked underwater.  
  
He kept Freddie aloft and manhandled those sturdy thighs onto his shoulders, taking Freddie’s cock into his mouth and sucking vigorously. Although Ephram kept himself mostly submerged it was easy enough to bob up and catch a breath now and again, and as he nibbled at the head of Freddie’s thick, tempting cock, he pushed his fingers into the fairy’s body again. The hole that had been so tight and unprepared before was now loosened and hot, thick cum streaming out, and Ephram used that slippery wetness entirely to his advantage. He sucked and thrust, near-crazed by the taste of his man, the feel of finger-fucking him.  
  
When Ephram came - his breath hot as he groaned loudly into the fairy’s ear, those big hands clutching hard at Freddie’s hips, bruises blooming under his fingertips as he hauled Freddie hard into each and every last plunge of his cock - all Freddie could do was moan, trembling as all of that hot slick spunk was fucked into him. Wanting to hold onto as much of it as he could until he was back on dry land; wondering, even in his cock-drunk haze, if it would give Ephram a thrill to see him leaking his creamy white spend so brazenly, where anyone could see it.  
  
But before he could beg a second time for permission to let go himself, Ephram was pulling out; still holding Freddie up enough to keep his face above water, gazing at him with the kind of worshipful devotion that stole the fairy’s breath - but leaving him empty and wanting. And Freddie’s face fell into tragedy - but only for as long as it took for Ephram to descend under the water and hustle him up onto his shoulders, taking Freddie’s poor neglected prick into the heat of his mouth.  
  
At which point he clutched hard for Ephram’s hair, and a sound more animal than human clawed its way out of his throat.  
  
Needless to say, he didn’t stay upright for long.  
  
Between the sweet suction of Ephram’s mouth, and the fingers that pushed their way back into his ass, Freddie fell apart quickly and completely, barely able to suck in a breath as the force of his orgasm arched his back and sent him under the water, his hips bucking in Ephram’s hands. Reveling in the pressure, and the silence, and the caresses of his husband’s tongue as he finally unloaded, until his lungs felt fit to burst and he was forced to twist his way back to the surface, blinking blindly in the sunshine before finding his man and hauling him closer, kissing him desperately as his chest heaved.  
  
“Do you have _any_ idea how much I love you?” Freddie panted against Ephram’s lips, water streaming down their faces and from the tips of his wings. “You’re just… you’re _perfect_ , Ephram. To me, you’re the most perfect bloody thing in the _world_ …”  
  
Freddie’s body twisting down into the water, bubbles dancing along the transparent panels of his wings as he came in jolts down Ephram’s throat, was almost enough to get the witch hard again. Or they could just stay down there under the water, where it was quiet and they were together, until they couldn’t hold their breath any longer and were forced to the surface.  
  
But Freddie’s instincts were less funereal, and he pulled them both back up to the air and the sunshine and the promise of more than Ephram could conceive of for himself. _Like he always does_ , Ephram thought with wonder as he kissed back, both of them having to pause to gasp stolen breaths in between, not wanting to part their lips for more than a second at a time.  
  
Freddie spoke, treasures falling from his breath with such a raw, elemental truth that Ephram half expected them to tumble out with gold and flowers like in that fairy tale. “I do,” Ephram said, moving them gently along with the waves until they’d reached a depth were Freddie could bob comfortably. “I know it, honey, I can’t help but know it. It’s in all the things you say to me and do to me and how you share my life, how you look at me when we’re in public, how you talk about me to other folks.” Ephram was a little throaty by now, post-coital emotion running high, but he smiled slow at Freddie anyhow.  
  
“Most of all, Freddie?” Ephram kissed his fairy, smoothing one wing closer so he could kiss its ridges as well as one horn brushed against Freddie’s ear. “I know how much you love me because you don’t _never_ let me forget it.” He stood, smoothing his hands down Freddie’s sides and feeling him still breathing quickly, the most beautiful dragonfly lover in all of Creation. “And darlin, I wanna do exactly the same damn thing for you. Because you deserve it, and because I don’t want you to even for a second doubt how much love I have for you. More’n I even knew I was capable of.”  
  
Finally run out of words, Ephram resorted to the most fundamental animal ways of showing care, pressing his warm tongue to the undercurve of Freddie’s eyebrow against the bridge of his nose and giving him a swiping lick up to his hairline despite all the water. Bumblebee-humming, hands travelling lazily up and down Freddie’s back and his wings.

Freddie smiled gratefully - still breathing heavily, still shaky from the force of the climax his husband had ripped out of him, but feeling light in body and soul - to hear that Ephram _did_ know, or believed that he did, the depth and the breadth, the _magnitude_ , of Freddie’s love for him. That however else the fairy might be personally deficient, in this, at least, he had succeeded. That despite everything else he had never been able to control when it came to love, he’d still managed to do what mattered most.

Ephram had gently propelled them towards the shore and shallower water - Freddie no longer really having to work, or rely on his witch, to keep breathing easily - and he reached up, feeling a little emotional himself, to touch his husband’s beautiful face; stroking Ephram’s cheekbones with his thumbs, his lover’s wet beard shining in the sun like spun gold, eyes putting the blue of the sea to shame. “Good,” Freddie said, returning the slow smile he’d been gifted with. “I want you to. I want you to know it like you know your name, sweetheart. Like it’s a fact. An absolute. Your name is Ephram Pettaline, the Earth revolves around the sun, and I love you with everything that I have.”

And when Ephram kissed him, Freddie parted his lips to take him in; kissing back, and then moaning softly as Ephram shifted closer, his mouth moving gently over Freddie’s wing, sweet and sensuous. Freddie would be hard again soon if he kept it up, but the fairy had no interest in restraint, and even less in decorum. While they were here, on their own, together, he wanted them to do whatever felt right; wanted them to glut themselves on each other, to abandon themselves to desire in whatever form it came - carnal, or emotional; spiritual, or entirely frivolous.

This trip - this _place_ \- was only for them. And Freddie wanted them to _have it_.

Ephram stood, and the fairy followed suit, still a bit breathless, caught up in the weight of his witch’s hands on him; loving how it felt to be touched and handled this way, Ephram’s ownership confident and obvious. And when his husband pledged his love in return - wanting Freddie to believe that he deserved it, wanting him never to doubt it - Freddie slid his hands up Ephram’s chest, one coming to rest over the steady beat of his heart, and he nodded. “I don’t worry that you’ll give me away anymore,” he said honestly, looking up into Ephram’s eyes. “I know that you’ll never do that again.”

“You love me,” the fairy said softly, “-and you want to be with me.”

He dug his fingers into Ephram’s pec, the thump of his witch’s heart making him smile. “This is mine,” he said, “I’m first.” And then he moved closer, putting his arms around Ephram’s waist, and letting out a lovestruck little laugh of surprise when his face was licked - which turned to a low groan of contentment, and the early stirrings of lazy arousal, as Ephram’s hands moved over his wings and the muscles of his back.

Freddie pressed a kiss to his husband’s collarbone, and then looked up at him with a grin, eyes sparkling. “Now let’s go back to the beach, yeah? I want to be kissed and cuddled and touched up right where everyone else can’t help but be eaten alive with jealousy.”  
  
All Ephram could really do in response to Freddie’s impassioned words was nod, not trusting himself to say anything that wouldn’t take this directly into the soppiest sentimentality. And Freddie, bless him, after granting forgiveness for a cruelty that had been like a burr in Ephram’s heart, leavened the mood by demanding to be fondled in plain view of the other men on the stretch of pale sand. “Whatever you want, dumplin,” Ephram said indulgently, linking hands with Freddie as they walked against the drag out of the water.  
  
The two of them attracted a number of interested, admiring looks, but after all the beach was resplendent with eye candy so nobody lifted themselves from their lax positions. Too hot right now anyways, Ephram thought. Everyone’s blood would pick up the later it got.  
  
He tugged his close-fitting swimsuit back on, shuddering with filthy pleasure when he realized that Freddie’s body bore the evidence of what they’d been doing in the water. Even his fairy constitution hadn’t erased the spattering of bruises and calmed the deep pink, swollen areas yet. “Good Lord, honey,” Ephram murmured, drawing Freddie down naked onto their mat, “don’t you look rode hard and put away wet.” He grinned, slipping on his sunglasses and pecking Freddie’s cheekbone. “Just like everything else, you wear it good.”  
  
Freddie gave an exaggerated little pout when he saw that Ephram had covered up again so quickly, then took a moment to stretch out his muscles - glorying in the heat of the sun on his body, before allowing himself to be drawn down to join his husband in the sand; laughing softly and preening a little at the way Ephram looked at him before his witch’s eyes disappeared behind his sunglasses.  
  
The fairy pushed himself up on his elbows, grinning in a self-satisfied sort of a way as he looked himself over. Cataloguing all the traces Ephram had left behind - pleased that they were still there, that he could still feel it all - and then splaying his thighs a little wider; leaning into the kiss pressed to his cheek, before settling down to make himself comfortable at Ephram’s side. “I do make it look a bit good, don’t I?” he said teasingly, reaching for his own glasses and sliding them on.  
  
“But then, it’s got to be said,” the fairy murmured, “-we are capable of some champion level fucking, sweetheart.” He smiled up at his husband cheekily, “And my body knows what it likes.”  
  
Tugging Ephram down into another kiss, Freddie found his witch’s hand and brought it up to the collar around his neck - unglamoured, as per instruction, and as on display as the rest of him. “It knows what it _needs_ , yeah?”  
  
Freddie remained gloriously naked aside from the collar that Ephram had wrought him out of his green earth magic, and not for the first time Ephram thanked his stars that his husband had no shame about this kind of thing. If there was anything Ephram loved, it was glutting himself on beautiful sights.  
  
“Your body knows what it likes. _I_ know what it needs,” Ephram countered, fingers curled into the woven collar as he swept his thumb along Freddie’s chin. “And good for the both’ve us that I fuckin’ love giving it to you, sweetheart.”  
  
Freddie had given a little shiver of delight as Ephram had fingered his collar, his witch correcting him - that deep voice a delicious rumble that the fairy felt low in his belly, warming him further and reminding him that satiation would never be possible when it came to Ephram; that where his husband was concerned, he would always want _moremoremore_ of absolutely everything he was, everything he offered. Because Ephram was absolutely right.  
  
He had known straight from the start what Freddie needed, and with each day that passed, that knowledge had only grown, and deepened. And now here they were, hundreds of days on, and in just a few dozen words Ephram had proved the truth of that - again - a hundredfold.  
  
It was lovely to just lay about together in the sleepy sunshine though; Freddie drawing lazy patterns on Ephram’s inner thigh, whilst Ephram’s fingers dragged gently through his hair. Everything warm, and slow, and sensual - like the afternoon itself had been drenched in honey.  
  
His sunblock could probably use another application, but Ephram was too lazy to bother and chose instead to just loll on the mat with his fairy, playing idly with the soft spikes of Freddie’s hair as it dried (fashionably) with the sea spray in it. “So when you was here before,” he asked, “were you with some other feller, or on your own? Because I’m thinking there’s a reason you know bout yonder orgy beach.”  
  
“Well,” the fairy said, when he’d rolled over to face his sweetheart a bit better, his head pillowed on his arm, “-the last time I was here, I’d come to relieve a widow of a Basquiat and a Miró - which sounds infinitely more callous than it was, darling, believe me - and I just sort of stumbled my way onto the beach really.”  
  
“You see,” he explained, playing a bit with Ephram’s nipple, “-the widow in question - Léonie, her name was - didn’t have the first bloody clue about art. Or about much of anything, really - outside of her own beauty regimen. I mean, her husband, who was an art lover - my god, sweetheart, you should have seen his collection; I nearly came in my trousers the first time I got a proper look at it - hadn’t exactly married her for the noblest of reasons, yeah? So when the old goat finally popped his clogs, there was a bit of a ripple of excitement in my sort of circles; everyone waiting with bated breath for his pieces to hit the open market again. The assumption being, of course, that Léonie - dim little thing that she was - would sell it all off at the first opportunity.”  
  
Freddie smirked. “Only I decided I’d rather help myself before she could manage it.”  
  
“It just seemed too bloody easy not to. Like taking candy from a baby. And it was… which, unfortunately, meant that I was bored sideways in the first two days.”  
  
“I mean, she was fit enough,” he went on, “-but that’s all she was, yeah? Almost literally. Talking to her was bloody tedious - and she was an appallingly lazy lover.”  
  
“It became apparent rather quickly that Stavros hadn’t been up to much in bed - I mean, the poor old thing was 40 years older than she was, so that’s hardly surprising - but she seemed to be under the impression that just getting her kit off would be more than enough effort for me too, and after about a week’s worth of that nonsense, I was dying for a proper shag.”  
  
“Especially since I’d just come off three months in Japan, catering to an old man of my own.”  
  
“So,” the fairy chuckled, “-the next time Léonie took me out to dinner, when our waiter gave me a little extra attention, I made sure to make the most of it; lingering near the kitchen on my way back from the loo. And when he invited me to the beach the next afternoon, I very gladly took him up on it.”  
  
Freddie leaned up and licked his way into Ephram’s mouth, kissing him playfully before pulling away with a grin. “I spent rather a lot of time at the beach after that,” he said, “I don’t think I’ve ever had a better tan.”  
  
Despite the luscious laziness of being out in the sun, warming them back up from the comparative chill of the water, Ephram perked up when Freddie launched into the story of how he came to be in Greece, on this beach and the more scandalous one. The way that Freddie told anecdotes was, like the fairy himself, full of witty escapades and clever naughtiness with a thrill of sexuality, constructed like clouds of champagne, if that made sense. But the reason Ephram enjoyed them so much was that Freddie never dumbed anything down for his wholly unsophisticated and unworldly (but spellbound) audience.  
  
Ephram had always suspected that he was quick on the uptake, and it was the lack of opportunity that had stunted his education. Freddie talked to him like that was a foregone conclusion, and trusted that the witch would be able to contextualize where it was needed. It damn near made Ephram want to bury Freddie in the sand or wrap him up in the mat or some other insane way of showing his deep gratitude when no simple method would do it.  
  
He snorted at Freddie’s audacious move to sample the sweets before they were put out, and at his subsequent boredom when the mark turned out to be too dull to even be good sex. “Now that there’s tragic,” Ephram said, tapping Freddie’s nose with a laugh. “She must’ve been some sorter fool to have you in her bed and not take full advantage of that.”  
  
The kiss was welcome, and Ephram kept his hand at the nape of Freddie’s neck after, lingering close. “Reckon we might put off the orgy beach for a mite,” he confessed in a lovedrunk, besotted undertone. “Because darlin, I’m fair certain I ain’t gonna want to share you for a couple days at least.”  
  
Reveling in the weight of his darling’s hand where it cupped the back of his neck, Freddie smiled, and rolled himself up to straddle Ephram’s hips; still pressed close, the two of them nearly chest-to-chest, though Freddie held himself up enough to be able to talk. Discarding his sunglasses as they slipped down his nose, the fairy’’s eyes shone with the same sort of moonstruck adoration that had been thick in Ephram’s voice only moments earlier. “Then you shouldn’t,” he said, “You should keep me all to yourself. Because I’m yours, love.”  
  
To be valued enough to be kept off limits to the rest of the world, to be hoarded like something precious… There was a part of Freddie that would never find anything more romantic - no matter how long the impulse lasted.  
  
“I’m absolutely yours.”  
  
He ducked his head and kissed Ephram again, grinning when he finally pulled back. “And besides,” he said, “-as soon as that sun starts to sink, you’ve promised to take me dancing, yeah?”  
  
Freddie sat up a little straighter, smoothing his hands over Ephram’s chest. “I mean it too,” he threatened teasingly, “The instant you’re finished licking olive oil and honey from my fingers, I’m putting you to work, sweetheart.”  
  
Almost instinctively at this point, Ephram cupped Freddie’s hips when his fairy moved on top of him, nothing blocking those bluebell-sapphire eyes or the intense devotion in them. Even surrounded by strangers, the connection between them could become all-consuming at any given moment and there they’d be, in their own little bubble where nothing mattered except loving each other as well as they could. “My lil captive fairy,” Ephram murmured, moving his hands down over Freddie’s ass to the junctures of his thighs. “So pretty, so fuckin’ obliging.”  
  
He pressed down with his hands, grinding up against Freddie’s naked body, but a slow sated movement instead of an urgent one. “I’ll keep on reminding you that you belong to me, too. You ain’t likely to forget, I know, but I love how you look when you hear it.”  
  
Ephram chuckled when Freddie pre-emptively scolded him in case he tried to wangle his way out of the whole dancing business. Picking up one of Freddie’s hands, Ephram gnawed gently at his fingers. “Put me to work,” he agreed. “I’ll do anything you ask.” He pulled Freddie back down against him, snuggling comfortably in the warm sunshine. “Especially since you got some real good ideas of what work I should do.”  
  
Freddie had gone willingly when Ephram had tugged him down again, cuddling up, and letting himself float on the delicious golden glow of the afternoon; feeling almost drunk on the complementary scents of his husband’s skin, and the sea breeze. On the slow steady warmth of love, security and arousal that seemed to radiate between them.  
  
He didn’t sleep - though he’d felt the change when Ephram had dropped off, and smiled, pressing a kiss to his witch’s chest; content to stay quiet for the time being - and had instead entertained himself with a hundred little decisions regarding all the things he wanted Ephram to experience while they were in Greece. Things to fill the senses; to dazzle and seduce them. Idly imagining the way each one would light up his sweetheart’s eyes.  
  
Freddie lay there happily as the sun slowly began its descent, gradually sinking down towards the horizon; as the other men on the beach began to drift away - some towards the cliffs and the more specifically carnal pleasures to be found there; some just off towards whatever the rest of the night might hold in store (more than one letting his eyes linger on Freddie and Ephram as he passed) - until finally, encouraged by the slight chill of the breeze and his own restless nature, the fairy sat up again and began to gather his clothes.  
  
His wings had ceased to be a concern - he had let them fade out of sight along with Ephram’s horns once they’d settled themselves in the sand again after their swim - and as he sat there, gazing at his still sleeping man, Freddie realized with a fond smile that that bit of glamour notwithstanding, he still wasn’t entirely done with his dust for the day.  
  
The sun, it seemed, had had its way with his husband - and Freddie was going to have to put that right if the rest of their evening had any hope of going the way he wanted it to.  
  
Taking a quick look around, he immediately recognized that the men who remained were far too wrapped up in one another - be they friends, lovers, or some combination of the two - to take much notice of a little bit of shimmer, and that was all the invitation he required. With one hand, dust streaming from his fingertips, he obscured the two of them from view, blurring them into something a bit dizzying to look at, as he got to work healing Ephram’s sunburn with the other. The whole thing took less than five minutes to accomplish - Ephram restored to his usual complexion without ever having stirred from his sleep - and as soon as he was done, more than a little self-satisfied, Freddie let the illusion blow off across the beach, and stood up, running his hands through his hair to shake the sand and salt from it, before reaching for his shorts.  
  
He was mostly dressed by the time Ephram woke from his nap - but his sunglasses and one of his shoes were still missing, and he was on his knees, digging a bit at the edge of the mat in case both had gotten inadvertently buried, when he heard his husband’s voice.  
  
Ephram found himself opening eyes that he didn’t remember closing. The wind had picked up slightly, still balmy but with a slight nip setting in. Shivering, Ephram reached for his shirt, dragging it over his head so haphazardly that it was all hiked up in the back. “Shit, did I fall asleep?” he groaned. “I din’t mean to! Although maybe it’s for the best – there’s a powerful hunger coming over me.” And not just for the food and dancing, either.  
  
“Hello, darling,” Freddie said with a smile, giving up his search and turning back to his witch, sitting down beside him. “You did actually, yeah. I must have worn you out.”  
  
“But that’s more than alright - in fact, ultimately, I think it’s for the best that you got a little kip - because I’m rather hungry myself…” the fairy leaned over, adjusted Ephram’s shirt, and then bit his earlobe, his eyes flashing with mischief and a bold sort of want, “…and I intend to keep you up very late tonight.”  
  
Getting to his feet, Freddie took Ephram by the hands and pulled him up after him, pushing up onto his toes a bit to peck him on the lips. “Now help me find my shoe and my glasses, and let’s get out of here, yeah?”  
  
“Because I don’t care if we walk down the beach, or go back to the Maserati and you drive us over, but I rather feel like a drink-”  
  
He grinned wickedly, “-and I want to lick most of it out of your mouth, sweetheart - so you’d best get your skates on.”  
  
Grunting, Ephram wrapped his arm around Freddie’s waist to hold him in place and kissed him harder, sucking Freddie’s tongue and nipping at his already cherry-swollen lower lip as he pulled away. “It was a good nap,” he proclaimed, stooping to pick up the mat entirely and prod at the sand around the borders. “And I didn’t even get burnt! I thought bout more sunscreen but I was too danged lazy to put any on.” Ephram proudly examined his arms and shoulders as if this were a personal accomplishment, and then went “oop!” and headed towards a nearby pair who were quite possibly engaged in intercourse.  
  
“Don’t mind me, fellers,” Ephram said, edging around to snatch Freddie’s sunglasses from where they’d landed when the fairy tossed them aside, and exaggeratedly tiptoed back to Freddie, who was triumphantly holding up his shoe. Ephram shoved up next to him so Freddie could steady himself while tugging the shoe on, and then slid the shades onto Freddie’s head. “My lil misfit,” he said, bumping Freddie before gathering up the rest of their belongings. “Losing track of all your clothings.”  
  
“Sunglasses,” Freddie intoned, all mock seriousness, as Ephram slid them back onto his head; pulling on his shoe and then righting himself again, “-are horrible misbehaving creatures which take every opportunity to run off the moment they’re set down. So clearly, I can’t be blamed for not being able to keep track of them.”  
  
“The shoe, however,” he grinned, “-is just me being careless. Though really,” the fairy’s eyes gleamed, “-I think you hold the lion’s share of the blame for that, darling. I mean, how in the world could I be expected to give a toss about something as dull as my shoes when you were standing there beside me getting your kit off? I’m not made of stone.”  
  
Ephram was dithering between Freddie’s offered options, thinking that a nice stroll down the sand to the restaurant would be a pretty special experience – until Freddie hit him with that troublemaker grin and made his intentions more than plain. “Maserati,” Ephram said instantly. “The faster I can get this ball rolling the happier I’ll be.”  
  
Freddie beamed happily. “Good,” he said, “You were absolutely made for that car, love. It’s almost criminal how bloody gorgeous you are behind the wheel.” Freddie winked. “I just wonder how long I’ll be able to resist the urge to make a nuisance of myself whilst you’re driving…” So the two of them packed everything back into the boot of the Maserati as the sun dipped lower, then climbed into the car; Ephram steering them back out onto the road with the kind of assertive self-assurance that made Freddie melt.  
  
There were some skills that Ephram possessed that were so innate, or that he was so good at, that his usual humble, understated attitude towards his abilities disappeared and was replaced with a casual almost-arrogance. When it came to driving, for example, Ephram was so confident that he could drive any vehicle ever made that it didn’t rattle him at all to be driving roads in an entirely different country. And when your lover liked to travel lavish and rent luxury vehicles, well then – a man sort of had a duty to make the most out of it, right?  
  
“You know,” Ephram said as he drove with his arm along the sill of his wound-down window, “sometimes in my head I call you my boyfriend?” He looked over at Freddie with a smile. “It feels all sorts’ve naughty. Illicit-like and stuff, like we’re dating in college or something.”  
  
It was just so good to see his witch so full of aplomb, so casually certain of himself and his own ability, that for a moment the fairy felt a lump form in his throat - because he wanted so badly for Ephram to always feel this way - and he reached out to tangle his fingers in his lover’s hair at the back of his neck, just needing to touch him. Smiling back sincerely when Ephram turned his way, though he was admittedly a bit caught by surprise at what he said.  
  
For Freddie, having always been the naughty secret, the illicit little fantasy, there was a part of him that felt stung to hear that Ephram sometimes liked to think of him the same way - as a boyfriend instead of a husband, when Ruby had always been a wife. But when his witch went on, those next few words giving a bit more context, Freddie thought he understood a bit better, and the sting faded away as though it had never existed at all.  
  
“How do you think we would have met at uni?” he asked, his voice a warm purr; encouraging Ephram to play with him, to breathe a bit more life into his imaginings. “I’d have been hanging on by the skin of my teeth, of course…” He smirked cheekily. “Only going to the lectures that amused me, finessing professors into letting me get around the rules… But I’d have fallen madly in love the minute I saw you, darling - and I would have done whatever I had to in order to get your attention…”  
  
Then, seeing the taverna coming up on their left the fairy gestured at it with a smile. “And here we are.”  
  
Ephram parked the car, and Freddie led him, not through the front door of the slightly care-worn looking building, but around the side and down to the back where the open concept of the broad wooden patio spilled out onto the beach in a gorgeously chaotic little collection of diners, tables and chairs; lanterns, fairy-lights, and candles already burning.  
  
Half the tables were covered by an awning, but the rest were strewn out under the sky, leaving room for the sand-dusted dancefloor, bathed in the beautiful pink and orange of the sunset, as the band that was just taking the little stage in the courtyard portion of the patio performed a make-shift momentary soundcheck. And, taking Ephram’s hand, Freddie grinned and led them down to one of the few remaining tables, pulling out his sweetheart’s chair so that he could sit down, and then catching a nearby waiter’s eye.  
  
When the man approached, the fairy ordered both a bottle of ouzo, and one of tsipouro, and a large assortment of mezédhes for the two of them to share at their leisure; shifting closer once they were alone again and tangling his legs with Ephram’s under the table, grinning as the band began to play.  
  
“So what do you think, love?” he asked, “Not quite what you expected from me?”  
  
Since Ephram did (very much) want to play, he held off on elaborating about his little romantic fantasies until they were seated. Not that Freddie made it easy for Ephram to get his mind off romance, with all of the smooth, worldly moves he was making. Ephram had sure as heck never had a chair pulled out for him and oddly, he found that he liked it.  
  
But then again, with Freddie he tended to discover a whole new range of experiences he didn’t know he’d like. If Ruby was familiar home and the comforts and safety it brought, Freddie was the dazzling world Ephram had dreamed of and longed for. Honestly, sometimes he thought that out of the three of them, he’d gotten the best deal out of their marriage.  
  
Freddie’s legs nudged against his under the table, all warm skin and strong muscle, and Ephram tuned back in fully. No point in ruminating when the real thing was right here, in the form of his handsome fairy and the scent of rosemary and seasalt in the air. “No, not quite,” he admitted. “I always figured you’d be wherever there’s champagne flowing and folks with sparklies on em just waiting for you to get your pretty lil fingers working.”  
  
He looked around, taking in the unpretentious attractiveness of the taverna and how it seemed to have a sprawling comfort where it was and how it worked. “On second thought,” Ephram said with a smile, touching two fingers under Freddie’s chin to draw him closer, “now that I’m here, dumplin, with you so relaxed and happy and–” he leaned in for a slow, lingering kiss, “–and as beautiful as I ever seen you, I reckon I owe you an apology.” He planted small kisses up the line of Freddie’s nose and across one cheekbone before helplessly returning to that ripe plum mouth. “I should of realized you’d know that the finer things in life ain’t necessarily the most sophisticated.”  
  
Ephram didn’t belabour the point, knowing that Freddie would easily tease out what he was actually referring to especially when Ephram bestowed a few soft kisses to his husband’s knuckles. “I’d be there on a scholarship,” he started, looping around easily to their conversation in the car. “And I’d have my nose in the books all the damn time, except for doing track and swimming and working at one of them, uh…” Ephram wracked his brain for things that cousins had told him about their post-secondary lives, “the, uh, stalls set up selling posters of art and rock bands.”  
  
Freddie smiled into Ephram’s kisses when then came, returning the first with equal ardour, savouring it and drawing it out, and then giving himself over happily to the rest. Preening under the attention and affection, reveling in the feeling of being beautiful - as though Ephram had made him that way simply by naming him so.  
  
And when his husband returned to his lips for one more taste, the fairy parted them wantonly, with a small exhalation of joy.  
  
“I want to surround myself with the best the world has to offer,” he explained with a soft smile as Ephram pressed a collection of gentle kisses to his knuckles, “…and the world is a wide, wonderful place, which is why beauty has to have an equally wide and wonderful definition…”  
  
“And when I find something perfect,” he laced their fingers together and squeezed, flashing his witch a grin, “-I do my best to keep it for myself.”  
  
Looking around, he gestured at their surroundings with his free hand, his cheeks flush with happiness. “Whether it’s a little taverna with the most gorgeous beachfront view in Greece…” Freddie turned back to Ephram, “-or something infinitely more precious.”  
  
Ephram’s assessment of himself as a university student made the fairy grin again, and he nodded. “And that’s where I’d have seen you first,” he told him. “Selling poster versions of my favourite paintings - like a sign from the universe that you were meant just for me.”  
  
“And I’d have gone straight over to smile and bat my eyes, and show you that nobody else who’d already seen you and done the same could possibly hold a candle...”  
  
Their food, and the chilled bottles of alcohol - along with a bucket of ice - arrived quickly, and Ephram leaned forward eagerly, his mouth watering as he tried to figure out the various tidbits of food. “You know you’re gonna have to explain everything to me,” the witch laughed, reaching for an olive and making a surprised noise when he discovered it was neither pitted nor stuffed with a pimento. Freddie was more than happy to oblige, already delighted by the noise his darling had made when he’d eaten the olive. “Of course, love,” he said, pouring Ephram some ouzo and adding just a little ice to help release the essential oils from the aniseed, and then doing the same for himself. “This,” he pointed at a creamy beige dip, “-is taramasalata; eat it with the bread, and I promise you’ll adore it.”  
  
“These little fritters,” he went on, “-are called kolokithokeftedes. And these ones-” the fairy picked up another sort, more reddish in colour, and held it out for Ephram to sample from his fingers, “-are tomatokeftedes.”  
  
“Ravasaki, dolmades…” Freddie picked up one of these too, and fed it to Ephram with a smile, unable to help the way his pupils dilated as he watched, or the rush of arousal it brought him, before finally pointing out the rest, one at a time. “…mussels, squid, octopus, olives, and grilled feta…”  
  
He smiled again. “And then, of course, we’ll have dessert.”  
  
All of Freddie’s gilded words were just tumbling gently against Ephram now like golden bubbles, popping and sinking in for him to thrill over later. For now he was much too distracted by being honest-to-God wooed by his dashing lover on a beach in Greece, entirely besotted with how his vague, uninformed fancies about the country were coalescing into such lavish fruition.  
  
Ephram picked up on Freddie’s return volley when it came to their nonsensical college meeting, grinning in agreement. “I would wonder what the hell you were looking for, since you didn’t seem like you was looking for any of the posters. Just peeking at me between em and hanging out by the register with that twinkle in your eye.” Ephram chuckled softly, his gaze travelling over Freddie’s features with deep affection, and added, “Lord Jesus, I wouldn’t stand a chance.”  
  
“I’d have started coming to watch you swim after that,” Freddie grinned back. “And to your track meets too. Exactly the same as I did that night in the underground, watching you fight. Sitting in the stands and cheering my arse off obnoxiously, bragging to everyone within earshot that you were my boyfriend…” His eyes sparkled cheekily. “…because even if you hadn’t said so yet, you _would_ be soon enough…”  
  
“And I’d ask to paint you for one of my art classes,” he added with a wink, reaching for one of the mussels. “Just to have an excuse to keep you naked for as long as I could; to be able to show you off a little bit more…”  
  
The food was the only thing that could successfully divert them both in any substantial way, and Ephram accepted the glass of ouzo, swirling the ice around as it slowly grew milky and released its fragrance. A sip of it made Ephram raise his eyebrows and go back for more, licking his lips and saying, “Licorice, huh? I like it. Taramasalata. Tarmaslada.” He repeated each dish’s name after Freddie, concentrating on the unfamiliar syllables and trying to wrestle them into some recognizable facsimile.  
  
After Ephram’s sixth mangled muttering of kolokithokeftedes, he was infinitely grateful when Freddie held up one of the tomatokeftedes, leaving Ephram only time for one rushed attempt before the savoury tomato flavour burst into his mouth and stunned him wordless. He chewed and swallowed it like he hadn’t eaten for days, leaning forward eagerly to accept the dolmathes from Freddie’s fingers. After that mouthful, Ephram thumped back in his chair, staring at Freddie in shock. “I only ever had hummus from the grocery before,” he said. “Is all of it this good?!?”  
  
Too impatient to wait for confirmation, Ephram picked up a curl of octopus tendril, exclaiming over the contrast between purple and white before he sank his teeth into its flesh past the slight chewy resistance. “Honey,” he said, sucking the oil and seasoning from his fingertips as he smiled at Freddie, “we’re gonna want a lot more ouzo. I don’t think we’re making it back to the apartment tonight.”  
  
The fairy watched happily as Ephram sampled the food, repeating each dish’s name in that adorably disarming way he had when Freddie introduced him to something new, an almost orgasmic sort of light glowing in his blue eyes when he tasted something he found particularly appealing. It was all Freddie could do to keep his arse in his own chair and not climb into Ephram’s lap again, wanting to be the thing - the _taste_ \- that put that look on his husband’s face.  
  
“It is all that good, yeah,” Freddie chuckled, taking a sip of his ouzo and helping himself to a piece of the ravasaki, his fingers sticky with honey in seconds. “I mean, _I_ think so, any road - so you’ll have to tell me if you find something you don’t like, love.”  
  
And when his witch announced that they likely wouldn’t be making it home that evening, Freddie found the urge to abandon his chair entirely that much harder to resist. “Are we not?” he laughed, heat already flaring in his eyes again even as he grinned, “Do you plan to keep me out till all hours of the morning like I’m some sort of floozy?”  
  
He topped up Ephram’s glass of ouzo, and then nodded at the tsipouro. “You’d better drink up then, darling,” he teased, “-because if you want another bottle, we’re already a bit behind.”  
  
“You know very well what a floozy you are, little darlin',” Ephram said loftily. “Hell, the whole beach was able to tell, what with how well-fucked you looked when we was coming up out of the water.”  
  
He was about to continue in that vein, volleying the teasing back and forth, but then Ephram stopped, his attention caught. The soft candlelight touched a spot on Freddie’s mouth – just the high curve of his deliciously fat upper lip – and turned it golden, a tiny smear of honey gilding him with its sweetness. With a helpless growl, Ephram pushed aside the plates none too gently, causing the jostled spices and juices to season the air, and reached for his lover.  
  
With one hand wrapped tight against the back of Freddie’s neck, the other holding his man’s side as if making sure he didn’t bolt, Ephram kissed Freddie ravenously, the lustiness of the salt air and unctuous food and aromatic liquor driving his own ardour higher. “Jesus,” he said breathlessly against Freddie’s kiss-bruised mouth once he had to pause, “we’re really gonna have to pace ourselves if we wanna get anything done ‘cept each other.”  
  
When Ephram confirmed that Freddie’s status as a trollop was hardly in question, he could only laugh, his eyes sparkling. “I’d say the lion’s share of the blame for that has to rest on the man who fucked me. I mean, it’s his fault that I’m sitting here now still craving his cock; desperate to have his hands on me again, or mine on him…”  
  
“His fault that I can’t keep my mind out of the gutter…”  
  
Freddie licked some of the stickiness from his fingers, still smiling. “If he didn’t know _exactly_ how to touch me, I really might be much better behaved.”  
  
The fairy sat there, watching his husband, warm and happy - and in doing so, was able to see the exact moment when his witch’s train of thought derailed; when the sportive light in his eyes became something hungrier and hotter. And it sent a shiver through him - at precisely the same time that he was hauled closer, his mouth captured and plundered like it should never ever be used for anything else.  
  
Freddie moaned wantonly into Ephram’s feverish kissing, unable to call the sound back, and not really wanting to, uncaring of what anyone nearby might think; and when breathing once again became a thing that he was expected to do, panting softly against his lover’s lips, the fairy huffed out a laugh. “But I don’t _want_ to pace myself,” he said, pulling back just enough to shake his head, lifting a hand to caress Ephram’s cheek. “I want everything at once; as much as I can have. I want _you_ , and I want _this_ , and I don’t want to deny myself a _thing_.”  
  
Freddie leaned in and licked his way into Ephram’s mouth again slowly, sucking lightly at his tongue, and then his lower lip, biting it gently before breaking away with a grin. “And I don’t want you to deny yourself either, sweetheart. Not here.”  
  
The fairy stood then, taking Ephram’s hand, and tugged him to his feet. “Now get that drink down you and come dance with me, yeah? Maybe you’ll hate it a little less than you think…”  
  
Ephram had honestly never been one of those guys who needed constant admiration and praise for how he screwed; the fact that he’d never been lacking for eager and varied sex partners was enough for him to be satisfied that he was doing it right. But there was some narrow zone of raw masculine ego in him that Freddie’s lavish, lascivious declarations never failed to take root, making Ephram want to claim his fairy over and over so the only thing he’d ever think about was the next time he’d be fucked.  
  
He wasn’t incognizant that Freddie’s history in selling himself included razor-smooth skills of flattering the targets, but Ephram knew that what Freddie said to him, none of it was artifice. The look of joyful, heated surrender in those sparkling blue eyes couldn’t be faked, or the feeling of Freddie shaking against him after being taken apart and begging for more.  
  
Freddie loved putting on private shows for Ephram, and Ephram was an ardently devoted audience. It couldn’t have meshed better if they’d planned it.  
  
“You’re right,” Ephram admitted. “You’re right, honey. This has been my dream for so long, and you’re so precious for making it reality for me, and there ain’t no reason we should hold back on nothin’ we want.” He blinked, then grinned. “ _I_ won’t hold back on nothin’ I want.”  
  
He got up when Freddie implored, draining his glass hurriedly as he stood before shuffling obediently to the dancing area. “Well awright now,” Ephram said regally, his eyes faintly glassy from the liquor and euphoria. “I’m about to put you through your paces, my lil sugarlump.” He gathered Freddie to him and with drunk-concentration aplomb, swirled his husband into a toned-down basic polka. “Before you ask how I got to be the living incarnation of Fred Astaire,” Ephram said with a sloshy, happy grin, “Edith taught me. This, a two-step, and some flatfoot. Tole me that was all’s I’d need to charm my way through life, as soon as I stopped lookin’ like they made me outta twigs.”  
  
Chuckling, Ephram meandered back to their university fantasy, murmuring, “If I got to the point where I’d let you draw me nekkid, darlin, then you’re damn right I would want you to be the same. And we’d have sex right there. I’d drop to my knees in front of your easel and suck you off while you tried to finish your drawin’ and then after you cum on my face I’d fuck you over your classroom stool till you’re boneless.” The initial rush of the ouzo settling deeper into his blood, Ephram nudged against Freddie’s ear, the soft skin just in front of it. “Then we’d fuck a few more times, and both of us would think it was just a fuckbuddy situation. And then we’d realize we was wrong, and we was in love.”  
  
The last part, Ephram said softly, just for the two of them. “And then I’d get to call you my boyfriend, pretty Freddie.”  
  
Freddie couldn’t help the way his happiness shone after Ephram consented to the sort of hedonistic greed for pleasure, and for each other, that couldn’t always be indulged to the fullest during the normal rigors of day to day life; and when his husband got to his feet to do his duty and dance with Freddie like he’d asked, drawing the fairy close and sweeping him into a sweetly drunken two-step with no hesitation at all, Freddie let out a laugh and allowed himself be led.  
  
“You can put me though my paces anytime, love,” he grinned. “And I’ll do the same for you - because now that I know how good you are at this, I’m going to expect it to happen a lot more often.”  
  
“I mean, it would be criminal to let all of Edith’s good work to go unappreciated…”  
  
Freddie himself had been taught to dance by Martin Adjaye, refining and expanding those skills on his own as a young man - but those were details of the unnecessary variety, and as such, he chose to keep them to himself.  
  
The song ended, and a new one began - something slower and softer this time - and Freddie adjusted his position gracefully in Ephram’s arms to allow them to hold one another just a little bit tighter than the frame of the two-step had been designed for, smiling up at his witch. “She was certainly right about that charm though,” he murmured, “I don’t think I could tell you no if I tried…”  
  
“So go on, darling,” the fairy said, his eyes bright, “-ask me for the moon, yeah? The way I feel right now, I might just be be able to manage it.”  
  
They danced on, able to move together with an inherent instinctive sort of rhythm, a beat all their own inside the music; and when Ephram picked up their fanciful little university narrative again, teasing Freddie with the delicious image of his husband on his knees, handsome face spattered with spunk, hard and ready to take his own pleasure, the fairy groaned, his cock thickening in his trousers at the thought. Wondering how far down the beach they’d need to walk for a bit of privacy, everything feeling slower and sweeter thanks to the drink and his ongoing state of desire, like his blood had turned to warm honey in his veins.  
  
And the gentle drag of Ephram’s nose against his temple as his witch spun out the evolution of their love in that beautiful world-that-wasn’t, made Freddie smile softly, turning his face towards Ephram’s just that little bit more in order to savour the touch.  
  
“And I’d wear that word like a badge,” he murmured, finally turning far enough to capture Ephram’s lips again. “…I’d finally have something really worth being proud of.”  
  
“Oh, honey,” Ephram sighed against Freddie’s kiss, pure happiness melting down his throat at the way Freddie said it. With no apprehension, no holding anything back, no veneer. All Freddie, just as he came, funny and naughty and far less of a brat than he thought he was. Well, in Ephram’s lovestruck eyes, anyhow, and that was good enough. More than.  
  
Wrapping his arms around Freddie’s waist, Ephram hoisted him slightly so that he could kiss his husband more deeply, chase down that lemon and seawater taste that had been added to the familiar taste of Freddie himself. “God,” Ephram laughed as they disengaged for a moment, “we must look the worst kind of sappy lovesick fools, darlin’. But somehow I ain’t in the mood to give a cat’s whisker.” He nodded over to their table as the song drew to a close. “What say we get some more of that incredible food in – and some ouzo – and then go exploring around some more?”  
  
Despite the generous amount of food they consumed, by the time the two of them stumbled giggling out of the restaurant they were pretty well liquored up, moving boneless and wobbly along the unstable sand. “Y’know,” Ephram declared in surprise, “I ain’t been drunk like this – a good celebratory drunk, not s _hit hurts so I don’t wanna feel nothin’_ drunk – for donkey years.” He was about to say something further when out of nowhere, a lone grey seagull swooped down and pecked his shoulder hard and fast, then flew up again before repeating the motion.  
  
“Jeezus! What the fuck?!” Ephram fended the gull off, looking deeply betrayed that any member of birdkind should attack him, when he realized that during their last drunken go-round of the feast he’d somehow managed to drop a morsel of sardine on his shirt. He gave Freddie a flat, resigned look as he let the gull land, gulp down its prize, nibble behind Ephram’s ear and then fly away.  
  
Ephram pointed a finger at Freddie. “You ever tell anybody bout that,” he threatened, “and I’ll have you set out on the docks in a suit made of fuckin’ herring.”  
  
Freddie tried to look serious, to find an appropriately sympathetic ‘of course, darling’ sort of an expression and nod - but he just couldn’t. He was far too drunk at this point - flushed and giddy, and wrapped in the warm effervescence of love and lust and contentment - to keep a straight face. And when Ephram pointed his finger at him, swaying there in the sand and doing his best to look authoritative, the fairy dissolved into peals of laughter, unable to help himself.  
  
“I could make a herring suit look like haute couture,” Freddie teased through his giggles, “-but I promise, sweetheart, I won’t breathe a word…” He pursed his lips, still laughing, and put a finger to them, backing away from Ephram with a hand out trying to draw his husband closer to the gentle roll of the surf, the moonlight on the water idyllic in a way that had to be seen in person to truly be believed and appreciated…  
  
…and then, entirely too tipsy to properly negotiate the density of the sand and his own backwards momentum, he fell promptly onto his arse.  
  
Which only made him laugh harder.  
  
“You know, I think,” he wheezed happily from the ground, “-that it may be safe to say it’s been a while since I’ve been quite this pleasantly legless myself…” Falling back, Freddie reached both hands up towards Ephram, grinning. “So you’d better either come help me up, or join me, darling - either one suits me.”  
  
The fairy laughed again. “Though if we’re going to keep walking, I may just say ‘fuck it’ and get my wings out. Flying seems much less likely to land me arse over tit…”  
  
“No, no.” Ephram kneeled down in an over-cautious way, looking like a camel about to sleep for the night. Sprawling on his back next to Freddie, he heaved a content sigh and looked over at his husband. “Let’s just lie here for a while. Till we fall asleep or sober up or Mizz Poppleworth sends her servants to collect us or whatever.” Ephram turned his gaze upwards, marveling at how different the stars and night sky looked on the other side of the world. “Y’know,” he said, brushing his knuckles against Freddie’s hip, “if you keep on givin’ me everthing I ever dreamed of, there’ll be no getting rid of me.”  
  
He pinched Freddie’s hip so his fairy would know that Ephram had no fear of being got rid of, was only teasing, and then pulled his lover against him to listen to the sound of crashing surf.  
  
— — —  
  
The midmorning sun streamed into their windows like daffodils, gilding Freddie’s bare skin and dappling Ephram’s hair as he jerked Freddie’s cock in one hand and fucked his tongue into his ass with his other hand spreading his fairy open. All of this salacious action was taking place below the windowsill and out of sight; Ephram had insisted that Freddie be placed in full view of anybody who happened by.  
  
So far it had only been one older couple who seemed amused by whatever naughtiness was surely going on, as Freddie dutifully reported. Ephram’s own cock was soft and damp against his balls, spent already, but he still felt the residual ache of lust as he lapped himself out of Freddie’s body.  
  
They had indeed been collected and taken back to their apartment, waking to find hot coffee and a basket of splitting-ripe purple figs and a jar of heavy resinous honey waiting in the kitchen. Ephram had crammed some of the fruit and honey down his throat ravenously, bolted down a cup of coffee, and then spread Freddie out on the table among the remains of their breakfast, to take him just as ravenously with the heady opium of fig and honey in the air.  
  
Which meant that once Ephram got the edge off, it was time for Freddie to get his release. “Go on and cum for me now, sweetheart,” Ephram entreated, scraping his teeth along one shapely cheek. “Don’t you worry none bout nobody walking past. You know how to make it look like butter wouldn’t melt, right?" He smirked. “In your mouth or your ass.”  
  
Freddie leaned on the window sill - his lips wet and parted, stomach muscles taut, and nipples hard - gazing out onto the street below as Ephram’s efforts threatened to take his knees out from under him.  
  
Flushed and hot in the golden glow of the sun and his husband’s attention, smears of honey sticky on his skin, in his chest and pubic hair, the fairy rocked his hips subtly, fucking into the tight channel of Ephram’s palm, and then pushing back against his mouth; the wet heat of his witch’s tongue as he was eaten out making him shiver, laving the delicious ache of having been still stretched around Ephram’s cock only a few minutes before. All of it too much, and still not enough; leaving him dizzy with pleasure.  
  
And while the elderly couple, walking by hand-in-hand, who’d stopped to look up when they heard a moan Freddie hadn’t yet been consciously trying to contain, had already moved on, smiling and laughing softly to themselves, the street was now slowly coming to life - just as the fairy was on the verge of cumming himself.  
  
“That feels so fucking good, love…” Freddie breathed, turning his eyes from the cobbles to watch as Ephram tugged him; his prick rosy and leaking in his lover’s fist, balls drawn up tight. Clinging to his willpower, fighting the need for release.  
  
But when Ephram pulled back, biting gently at the round swell of Freddie’s ass-cheek and telling him to cum, to let go no matter who might be watching - but circumspectly - Freddie did exactly that. Gripping the window ledge, he bit his lower lip to hold back a cry, a shudder rolling through his body as warm jets of spunk first painted the wall and then spurted over Ephram’s long wicked fingers.  
  
The pleasure that Ephram had swiftly become addicted to when he was able to take Freddie apart with sex was incredible. He hadn’t understood, when Freddie had first cautioned that he didn’t like getting real rough and down dirty, that Freddie was saying something more articulated than that. Once Freddie had started gasping _Daddy_ when Ephram rode him hard, responded with trembling frenzy when Ephram railed him raw, no foreplay, no nothing … and now, how Freddie had taken it so sweet and so eager each time Ephram chose to plunder him, never mind what the fairy was occupied with at the moment.  
  
It wasn’t that Freddie didn’t like it rough and dirty, and it wasn’t that Ephram needed it to hurt. What they needed was each other, to coax out and ignite those hidden coal-seams of dark desire. Listening to his darling fairy trying to hold back from making a sound when he came, Ephram felt that unquenchable desire ripple up from his belly again; he reached up and turned Freddie around, slamming him against the wall and savagely cleaning every smear of pearly cum from Freddie’s belly and cock and his own fingers before standing up.  
  
“Let’s go back to bed,” Ephram didn’t give Freddie much of a choice, but he didn’t think his husband would mind; those blue eyes were pupil-blown and fig-mouth swollen sweetly, a little unsteady on his feet. Ephram himself wasn’t wearing anything, having done away with his robe during the sex, and he piled them in together with the sunshine filtered by bougainvilleas outside the open window.  
  
Freddie had still been reeling from the force of his orgasm when Ephram had spun him round again, pushing him back against the wall - which he’d needed, given the watery state of his knees - and licking him clean like a starving man as the fairy had watched in a love-drunk sort of awe, moaning softly as Ephram’s tongue dragged over his sensitive skin. And once his husband had stood again, deciding that they should return to bed, Freddie happily allowed himself to be herded in that direction, unable to think of anywhere else he’d rather be. Now or ever.  
  
So Ephram put them back to bed - close and comfortable; the scent of flowers in the air as the morning breeze drifted through the window, refusing to be outdone by the sweetness of the sunshine - and when his witch began to speak, his touch warm and gentle, he had Freddie’s absolute and undivided attention.  
  
“When I touch you,” Ephram said solemnly, fingers trailing the dapple of gold along Freddie’s shoulder, “I remember the first time I tasted apple jam and it – it did that thing where it’s almost a lightning shock in your mouth, it’s so good. I remember being little and singing in church and looking up at the stained glass window feeling as if God’s grace was blessing me. I remember–” Ephram moved his palm down Freddie’s side, pressing, caressing. “When I touch you, darlin’, the way that you let me, I remember how lonely I was before you. I remember it, but I don’t feel that memory. You done pulled all the hurt out’ve it.”  
  
Each word, each memory, that fell from Ephram’s lips was a treasure, a gift that Freddie would hold and keep and polish, and he lifted his hand to Ephram’s cheek, stroking his cheekbone with his thumb, and wondering how it was that he’d ever gotten so lucky to have found this man and convinced him to love him. Still staggered that two people could be meant to share so much; that their hearts could be so similar when they’d come from such different places.  
  
Because Freddie remembered that loneliness too. He hadn’t thought it would ever leave him.  
  
“You’re what love feels like to me, sweetheart,” the fairy said softly. “I never really knew what it was until you gave it to me.”  
  
So they cuddled closer, warm and together, bathed in a bone-deep sort of intimacy; Freddie situated himself draped across his husband’s chest and stomach, wings unfolded and fluttering idly, throwing shimmering patterns of reflected sunlight throughout the room.  
  
They lingered there like that, waiting for their bodies to give in to the languorous feel of post-sex, until Ephram prompted, “Wanna get up and go out? We could take a stroll and find lunch. Or look at art and you could tell me bout it. Or pick up guys to bring back here.” He laughed at the last suggestion, not entirely keen on bringing strangers back to the place Fei Fei had arranged for them; being in a different country made Ephram more cautious about his step.  
  
“Or, y’know – strike that last one. If we meet anybody hot we’ll go down to the beach with em. Our place is our place for only us.”  
  
Freddie's childhood memories of being hugged, and held, and told that he made people happy and that bad things were not his fault, were distant and suspect in the wake of later inescapable truths - and to have those things back again, strong and constant and unwavering, from the man who mattered to him most…  
  
Freddie was still just a little awestruck by it.  
  
It was something he’d spent years convincing himself he didn’t need, something he never would have known how to ask for - but Ephram gave it without a second thought.  
  
Which, despite Freddie’s wonder, wasn’t surprising, really. Since the moment they’d first fallen in love Ephram had been his warm safe place in a lifetime of draught and cold.  
  
And when he asked if Freddie wanted to go out, listing some of their possible options, he grinned, lifting his head and crawling up Ephram’s chest to steal a kiss from his witch’s lips; loving that Ephram didn’t really want to invite anyone else into their little flat. That he wanted their Grecian bubble to stay entirely theirs.  
  
“I don’t want to bring anyone here either, love,” Freddie agreed with a smile. “As you said, some things are only for us, yeah?”  
  
“Going out sounds lovely though, yeah. I mean, there are actually three bloody good galleries within walking distance here in Metaxourgio, so we could kill two birds if you like - get a bit of lunch and then maybe go round and have a look? I’d love to take you The Breeder, darling…” The fairy’s eyes sparkled. “And then off to the beach for a bit more breeding later, if we find ourselves in the mood.”  
  
He helped himself to one more kiss, biting playfully at Ephram’s lower lip, then moved away, kissing down his darling’s chest to nuzzle briefly between his legs, breathing in the thick heady scent of their morning’s exertions with an appreciative sigh before getting up entirely to stand, sticky and mussed, at the foot of their bed, smiling down at Ephram. “But I’ll need a shower first,” he chuckled. “Someone’s covered me with spunk and honey, and those aren’t the sorts of accessories that even I can carry off in polite company.”  
  
“The whut?” Ephram sat up, legs sprawled in the wake of Freddie’s parting attentions and eyebrows raised in disbelief. “There ain’t no way there’s an art gallery with that sorter name, Freddie, you’re trying to pull one over on me.” He clambered out of the bed, scratching the back of one freckled, faintly sunburned (thanks to fairy magic leeching out most of the redness) shoulder as he muttered, “Ain’t no way that’s a real proper name, why would it be called that?”  
  
Circling the apartment for no real reason other than to stretch and realign post-coital muscles and joints, Ephram eventually intruded on Freddie – innocently massaging his sudsy head in the shower – and said, “If it ain’t actually called The Breeder I’m gonna whup your ass like you ain’t never had a hiding before.”  
  
Despite this threat delivered without a smile or chuckle, Ephram’s fingers were gentle where they took over from Freddie’s, cupping his fairy’s head as he finished shampooing and then rinsed the foam away. He took the bottle that Freddie indicated came next and applied a generous dollop of it, enough so that he could swirl Freddie’s hair into two down-curled horns like a ram’s.  
  
“You know what I wanna do at some point,” Ephram said, taking the soap and starting to wash himself, “is that thing with the olive oil, with the gladiators. Where that’s how they get off all the dirt and sweat, with olive oil. I forget what it’s called proper, but you know what I mean?”  
  
Freddie laughed at Ephram’s reaction to the name of the gallery, and grinned, pressing his hand over his heart in a show of sincerity. “I promise, love,” he said, “-that’s exactly what it’s called. I think it was named for a magazine when it opened - or something like that, any road. Only now it’s become a bit more symbolic, yeah? Cultivating a fertile breeding ground for contemporary art, and all that sort of thing.”  
  
He chuckled. “I mean, that’s my assumption, anyway. I’ve never really known for certain why they called it what they did.”  
  
Freddie gave Ephram a quick peck on the cheek, then winked before heading off to shower. “I just know that it makes an impression.”  
  
He hadn’t been under the water terribly long however - not by his standards, at least - when Ephram climbed in to join him, and the fairy easily allowed his husband to take over washing his hair for him; laughing again at the threat of a good hiding (in spite of the serious tone that Ephram employed) should the gallery not really be The Breeder at all. “I swear,” Freddie protested, eyes shut tight as suds cascaded down his face and over his smile, “-if it isn’t called The Breeder, you can do whatever you like with me - but you know as well as I do that if I were going to make something up, I’d do a far better job of it than this.”  
  
The fairy pointed out the next step in his hair-care procedure, then held still while Ephram massaged the conditioner into his scalp; his witch taking the time to play with his hair for a moment, before leaving it to Freddie to rinse it all away as he began to wash himself.  
  
And Freddie stood under the spray, dragging his fingers through his hair until the water ran clear, before smirking suggestively at the notion of Ephram oiled up and glistening. “I think I read once,” he said, “-that they used olive oil in the Roman baths in order to be able to bottle the gladiators’ sweat, because women of the day considered it to be an aphrodisiac.”  
  
“So maybe I’ll invest in a bottle of extra virgin while we’re out, yeah?” he murmured teasingly, “You might be all sorts of dirty again by the time we get back to the flat tonight…”  
  
The fairy gave Ephram’s behind a little squeeze, then abandoned him to his own devices; leaving unconcerned puddles on the floor as he dried himself on the way back to the bedroom, going through their purchases, and collecting things for the both of them, before making his way back to the loo. “Your clothes are hanging on the back of the door, sweetheart,” he said as he dressed himself and stood in front of the mirror to primp a bit.  
  
“I haven’t brought you any underwear though - did you want me to fetch a pair?”  
  
“I don’t need no excuse to do whatever I want with you,” Ephram reminded Freddie, pinching the meaty part of his hip. He scrubbed his face with soap and then turned it up under the fall of the shower to rinse off, spitting out water in blips and blubs before stepping away to let Freddie out. “And it sure ain’t beyond you, kitten, to make up a bad lie in the hopes of gettin’ punished for it. I know your lil tricks by now.”  
  
Taking up the full space now, Ephram gave his feet a dedicated washing – a holdover from working coal – and kept on talking. “Yeah, that’s it! When they scraped off the oil and sweat they’d put it in pots and sell em off. Would you wear it as a perfume? Or cook with it?” Neither of those options sounded terribly good out loud, but still Ephram agreed eagerly as he turned off the water, “But yeah, get the oil. This is my dream trip after all so might’s well do all the dream Greece stuff we can, right?”  
  
“Me personally?” Freddie called from the bedroom, eyes sparkling with mischief where they were reflected in the mirror he was stood in front of. “Oh, I’d use it to abuse myself - and then I’d lick my fingers clean.”  
  
“Maybe daub a bit behind my ears too, and at the hollow of my throat just to keep the scent close…”  
  
He grinned again, fussing with his hair now that he was dressed. “So I’ll scrape you clean tonight, and then use whatever’s left in the bottle to cook your dinner tomorrow, hm?”  
  
By the time Ephram got out of the shower Freddie had moved on to the unfogged mirror in the bedroom, and Ephram shook his head wildly to get water out of it before saying, “Naw, no need to bother with the shorts, not here. Especially considering what we’s gonna inevitably end up doing.”  
  
Going through his brief grooming routine, Ephram put on the clothes that Freddie had picked out, still thinking about the strigil and oil cleaning. “You think my scrapings would rake in the money?” he asked, strolling into the room and sitting on the bed to put on his shoes. “I’d be a good gladiator, I reckon.” He also naturally ran hot, so at any given time Ephram’s skin smelled vaguely of clean, warm sweat under his cologne.   
  
Watching Freddie intensely spiking his damp hair this way and that before sweeping it down flat and then spiking just one specific area, Ephram grinned, “Leave it alone, dear, you look pretty just as you are.”  
  
The shower stopped, and Freddie could hear Ephram moving around in the small bathroom - and when his witch finally emerged to join him in the bedroom, looking sun-kissed, and golden, and far more deserving of an ode than a Grecian urn had ever been, asking if Freddie thought that his particular oil scrapings would have been popular in the ancient world, the fairy paused briefly in his hair-styling to say that he thought Ephram’s sweat would have been the most sought-after perspiration in Rome.  
  
He wrinkled his nose when he was called ‘dear’ though; pulling a laughing face as he turned round, apparently pretty enough for today, and putting his arms around his husband’s neck, protesting, “ _Dear_? Did we retire and I didn’t notice?”  
  
Freddie leaned up and gave Ephram a teasing nip of a kiss, playfully muttering “…bloody hell… _dear_...” with a shake his head, as though he’d never been called anything more offensive. But once he’d pulled back again, flat on his bare feet, gazing up at his witch, his expression grew more thoughtful as he looked into Ephram’s clear blue eyes, thinking about what he’d said before about making a good gladiator.  
  
Because he _would_ have. However he’d arrived in the arena, volunteer or slave, carried there by misfortune and pain, Ephram would have fought with everything he had - and Freddie knew that the crowd would have _loved_ him for it. He would have won their favour not with bravado or showmanship - but with determination.  
  
“You know, love,” the fairy murmured, his fingers tugging gently through the damp hair at the nape of Ephram’s neck, “-you really would have been a good gladiator. You would have been utterly magnificent.”  
  
Freddie kissed him again, then smiled, banishing the melancholic air of his husband’s gladiatorial potential with better thoughts. With memories of the night that Freddie had watched him fight, and the way they’d celebrated his victory, and with the very real promise of sunshine and adventure just outside their door.  
  
“Come on, sweetheart,” he beamed, dropping his hands to Ephram’s waist and beginning to back his way out of the room towards the flat’s front door, towing Ephram along with him, “-let’s go out and play.”  
  
“I want lunch and art and orgasms - not necessarily in that order.”  
  
Ephram rumbled good-naturedly when Freddie hung around his neck and protested at being called ‘dear’. “Nothin’ wrong with it,” Ephram said. “Good solid word for somebody you’re fond of. And besides, I like the idea of us retired. Me all gnarled and thin and you beautiful as you are right now, just a little greyer.”  
  
Ephram would never mention it aloud, but it wasn’t all that hard for him to envision Freddie older, even fussier, slowed down some but still more full of charm than a sloop of peacocks. Somehow more English, too, even though they wouldn’t have spent much time there given Freddie’s relative disinterest in his country of origin. He could see them puttering away in the studio together, Freddie making frustrated or pleased sounds as he mixed paints and scraped his canvas while Ephram went through the precise, painstaking steps of carving wood and building sculpture. Grey-haired and relaxed and nothing to do but spend every moment together, letting the days and nights roll into one.  
  
He’d call Freddie ‘dear’ every damn day, when the time came.  
  
Freddie laughed, rolling his eyes, but huffed out an affectionate sigh of concession at Ephram’s defence of ‘dear’ when he heard the rationale behind it, quite liking the picture that his sweetheart painted.  
  
It was still a bit novel for Freddie to think of his future as something with a form and a shape after a lifetime of existing moment-to-moment, everything in flux and able to be adjusted on the fly should circumstances or interest change. That the years ahead would all be spent with Ephram, the fairy believed in now as a certainty, but he had yet to really imagine the details of what it might look like.  
  
Ephram’s descriptions though, brought a small smile to his lips - which he tried to hide on principle, being that he’d objected to the pet name to start with, and felt the need to save face.  
  
Sort of.  
  
It was a fairy thing.  
  
“Well, in that case,” he allowed - mock-grudgingly, though his eyes sparkled, “-I suppose I can’t argue, now can I?”  
  



End file.
